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This Home Reading Course, devised primarily 
for men and women in business and the professions, 
is published by Chautauqua Institution at Chau- 
tauqua, N. Y. It is not a course of technical 
business training, but is intended to render per- 
sons in business and the professions the same ser- 
vice that the Home Reading Courses conducted by 
the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle have 
supplied for the general reader. It provides books 
and editorial helps which busy people may use 
systematically but without tyranny of require- 
ment. The selection of books has been oflacially 
indorsed by the Federation of Business and Pro- 
fessional Women^s Clubs, and the Federation co- 
operates with the Institution in awarding credit 
for completed courses. The certificate awarded to 
any member on completion of the course will be 
officially signed both by the Institution and by the 
Federation. 



•1 



WOMEN 
PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 



A STUDY MADE FOR THE 
WOMEN'S EDUCATIONAL AND INDUSTRIAL UNION 



BY 

ELIZABETH KEMPER ADAMS, Ph.D. 

Formerly Professor of Education in Smith College 
and Assistant Chief, Professional Section 
War-Emergency U. S. Employment Service 



Chautauqua Home Reading Series. — Course for 
Men and Women in Business and Professions 



Qllyautauqtta, Nrm fork 
1921 



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Copyright, 1921 
By The Women's Educational and Industrial Union 



Printed by Chautauqua Print Shop 
Chautauqua, N. Y. 



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I 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I. Who are Professional Workers? i 

11. Women as Professional Workers i8 

III. Specifications for Professional Workers ... 36 

IV. The "Learned Professions": Medicine, Law, the 

Ministry 62 

V. Health Service Other Than Medicine .... 83 

VI. Food and Living Services 103 

VII. Food and Living Services 117 

VIII. Community, Civic, and Government Services . . . I33 

IX. Social Services 156 

X. Social Services 173 

XL Perse»&r*Services 185^ 

XII. Industrial and Labor Services 201 

XIII. Commercial Services, Office and Mercantile. What Is 

a Professional Secretary? 223 ^ 

XIV. Commercial Services : Banking, Insurance, Public 

Utilities, Real Estate 254 

XV. Information Services : Journalism, Publishing, Adver- 
tising, Publicity 279 

XVI. Art Services : Literature, Drama, Pageantry ; Archi- 
tecture ; Other Fine and Applied Arts .... 308 

XVII. Technical Services : Sciences and Technologies, Psy- 

chology, Statistics 325 

XVIII. Library and Museum Services .... . . 356 

XIX. Teaching and Other Educational Services . . . 373 



WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

CHAPTER I 

WHO ARE PROFESSIONAL WORKERS? 

There has never been a time when it was so necessary 
for professional persons, men or women, young or old, 
novices or veterans, to ask themselves honestly and thought- 
fully: Why do I call myself a professional worker? What 
am I doing to justify the title? The unprecedented demand 
for experts of many sorts during the war magnified the im- 
portance of the professions while at the same time it chal- 
lenged many of their comfortable assumptions. Old pro- 
fessions have changed places in the scale of values ; new 
professions have emerged and are emerging. The temper 
and methods and outlooks of all professions are undergoing 
profound alterations. For the first time they are beginning 
to consider seriously their relations to one another, to other 
groups of workers, and to the social order as a whole. 
Women in far greater numbers are looking to professional 
careers. The very term "professional" has acquired a wide- 
spread and easy popularity. To answer the first two ques- 
tions, accordingly, we must attempt to answer two others: 
Who, to-day, may justly be considered professional work- 
ers? What, to-day, may justly be considered professional 
occupations ? 

To get at the distinguishing marks of the professional 
worker, it is the part of wisdom to look first at the historic 
"learned professions" of medicine, law, and divinity. All 
three involve: (i) a considerable period of special prepa- 



2 WOMEN iPkOFESSIONAL WORKJlRJ 

ration and training, tending to become more exacting; (2) 
a public and frequently legal recognition of professional 
status, by examination, registration, ordination, and the like ; 
(3) eligibility to membership in professional societies and 
associations carrying with it the obligation to maintain pro- 
fessional standards of skill and conduct; (4) a consequent 
position of responsibility in and to the community; (5) 
practice of the profession as a permanent calling providing 
an adequate livelihood. 

Dictionary definitions agree substantially, although in far 
more majestic language, upon these marks of a profession. 
They all point out that the derivation of the word empha- 
sizes the public and active character of the occupation, the 
original Latin word meaning open or public avowal, a sense 
retained in speaking of the profession of a monk or nun, 
public admission into a religious order. They likewise call 
attention to the social responsibilities flowing from the spe- 
cial training and public recognition involved. A profession 
is a "vocation in which a professed knowledge of some de- 
partment of science or learning is used by its practical appli- 
cation to the affairs of others either in advising, guiding, or 
teaching them, or in serving their interests or welfare in the 
practice of an art founded upon it." The Oxford Dic- 
tionary quotes Frederick Denison Maurice as saying in 
1834: "A profession in our country is expressly that kind 
of business which deals primarily with men as men and is 
thus distinguished from a trade, ^ which provides for the 
external wants or occasions of men." They mark off a 
profession negatively from other occupations. It is not 
purely mechanical, commercial, agricultural, or the like, al- 
though it may concern itself with all these fields; it is not 
mere skill; it is not mere study and investigation; it is not 
mere pursuit of one's own purposes. The old description of 
a profession as involving mental and not manual work has 
lapsed with the growth of the scientific and technological 
professions and the use of instruments of precision and 

^ For suggestive comparisons between a profession and a trade, 
see Trades and Professions, by Prof. George H. Palmer. Riverside 
Educational Monographs (1914) and Teaching as a Profession, by 
Frank Roscoe, in Cambridge Essays on Education (1917). 



WHO ARE PROFESSIONAL WORKERS? 3 

techniques of manipulation. But the insistence upon intel- 
lectual direction and control is stronger than ever. 

Even the secondary use of the term professional as op- 
posed to amateur, in speaking of a professional coach or 
a professional entertainer, carries with it the idea that the 
occupation is follow^ed as a calling and not as a mere avoca- 
tion or pastime. The Oxford Dictionary emphasizes the 
ethical obligations of a profession in saying that the adjec- 
tive professional is "disparagingly appHed to one who makes 
a trade of anything that is properly pursued from higher 
motives, as a 'professional politician.' " The popular esti- 
mate of unworthy professional practitioners is reflected in 
such epithets as quack doctor, shyster lawyer, sham minister, 
and in the slight distrust attaching to a person who has fitted 
himself for one of these three professions and then fails 
or ceases to follow it — witness the gibes that our legisla- 
tures are made up of unsuccessful lawyers and that the 
most glittering oil and mining stocks are offered by ex- 
clergymen. On the other hand, the popular belief that a 
certain prestige is given by the term "professional" accounts 
for its use by dancing-masters, chiropodists, masseurs, for- 
tune-tellers, and so on, constituting a pseudo-professional 
fringe. 

A careful analysis of the characteristics of a genuine pro- 
fession is given by Dr. Abraham Flexner in an address 
delivered before the National Conference of Charities and 
Correction, entitled "Is Social Work a Profession ?" ^ Dr. 
Flexner's six criteria are as follows: (i) Professions in- 
volve essentially intellectual operations with large individual 
responsibility; (2) They derive their raw material from 
science and learning; (3) This material they work up to a 
practical and definite end ; (4) They possess an education- 
ally communicable technique; (5) They tend to self-organi- 
zation ; (6) They are becoming increasingly altruistic in mo- 
tivation. 

Dr. Flexner drives home the necessity of intellectual mas- 
tery and consequent assumption of responsibility in a pro- 
fession. "A free, resourceful, and unhampered intelli- 
gence applied to problems and seeking to understand and 
^Proceedings, 1915. 



4 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

master them — that is in the first instance characteristic of a 
profession. . . . Responsibility follows from the fact that 
professions are intellectual in character, for in all intellec- 
tual operations the thinker takes upon himself a risk. . . . 
The execution or application of a thought-out technique — 
be it crude or exquisite, physical or mental — is, after all, 
routine. Some one back of the routineer has done the 
thinking and therefore bears the responsibility, and he alone 
deserves to be considered professional." 

His fourth criterion is a concrete and practical test amid 
the multitude of new activities calling themselves profes- 
sional and the flourishing crop of "intensive" and "special" 
courses sown by the war. "Each of the unmistakable pro- 
fessions . . . possesses a technique capable of communica- 
tion through an orderly and highly specialized educational 
discipline. Despite differences of opinion about details, the 
members of a given profession are pretty well agreed . . . 
as to the amount and kind of training, general and special, 
which should precede admission to the professional school ; 
as to the content and length of the professional course. 
These formulations are meant to exclude from professions 
those incapable of pursuing them in a large, free, and re- 
sponsible way ; and to make sure that those potentially ca- 
pable are so instructed as to get the fullest possible benefit 
from the training provided." The importance of this cri- 
terion as a measure of the assured standing of a profession 
is illustrated by the evolution of professional training in 
medicine and law from apprenticeship with some old doc- 
tor or lawyer to institutions like the Johns Hopkins Medical 
School or the Harvard Law School. The development 
within a decade or so of schools of social work, schools of 
journalism, schools of commerce and business administra- 
tion, schools of pubHc health, are significant indications of 
growing professional standards in these fields. Everywhere 
professional schools of reputation are requiring at least two 
years of college work for admission. They advise college 
graduation, and a small but increasing number insist upon 
it. Nowadays no occupation can justly claim professional 
standing if its speciaHzed training is based upon anything 
less than a full high-school education as an irreducible mini- 



WHO ARE PROFESSIONAL WORKERS? 5 

mum. No worker, moreover, who is not equipped with a 
generous Hberal education and the best professional train- 
ing is prepared to advance to positions of full professional 
responsibility. 

Dr. Flexner takes a hopeful view of the tendency of pro- 
fessions to self-organization. "Professional activities are 
so definite, so absorbing in interest, so rich in duties and re- 
sponsibilities, that they completely engage their votaries. 
The social and personal lives of professional men and their 
families thus tend to organize around a professional nu- 
cleus. A strong class consciousness soon develops. . . . Or- 
ganizations of physicians, lawyers, and teachers may find 
the personal interests of the individuals of which they are 
composed arrayed against those of society at large. On the 
whole, however, organized groups of this kind are, under 
democratic conditions, apt to be more responsive to public 
interest than are unorganized and isolated individuals. In 
any event professional groups have moje and more tended to 
view themselves as organs contrived for the achievement of 
social ends rather than as bodies formed to stand together 
for the assertion of right or the protection of interests and 
principles." 

Professor Palmer ^ presents the group spirit of the profes- 
sions even more winningly. "It is significant that we do 
not say *a professional.' . . . Our common term is *a mem- 
ber of a profession,' plainly indicating that he who deserves 
to be called such is no longer a merely individual person. 
He has merged his individuality with that of others and 
now belongs to a troop, a company, a brotherhood, who 
possess a common stock of knowledge, common purposes, 
common standards which are continually growing and to 
which each member of the brotherhood is expected to con- 
form and contribute." 

It is undoubtedly true that the contributions of the pro- 
fessional groups during the war did much to quicken their 
sense of public and social responsibility, and that they 
are now confronting larger obligations and opportunities. 
But the fact remains that their close organization in the past 
has too often made them exclusive and self-satisfied, taking 

* Trades and Professions, pp. 22, 23. 



6 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

their '^public" character in a narrow and conventional sense. 
There has been a certain snobbery about many professional 
persons; and the much vaunted systems of "professional 
ethics" have often become in practice hardly more than rules 
of professional etiquette, operating against flexibility of 
mind and breadth of outlook. Each profession has been a 
world in itself, learning little from other professions and in- 
different to the world at large. The spirit of the times and 
their own progress are doing away with these limitations ; 
but professional customs and habits of mind are strongly 
entrenched, and cannot be transformed in a day. 

Medicine has taken the lead in adopting a more social and 
cooperative attitude through its new emphasis upon preven- 
tion and public health. That it is prepared to go still fur- 
ther is indicated by the present active discussion of "group" 
medical practice, as illustrated at one end of the financial 
scale by the Mayo Clinic and by certain hospitals and dis- 
pensaries at the other. But all professions are facing de- 
mands upon them for public service and are cooperating in 
public enterprises. The new ideas at work found expression 
in the program of an inter-professional conference held in 
Detroit in November, 1919, where the three main topics for 
discussion were: (i) Professional organizations; their func- 
tions and interrelations; (2) Relations of the professions to 
the public; (3) Educational obligations of the professions. 
Detailed topics proposed for discussion were as follows: 
The possibilities of cooperation among the professions for 
the common good; comparison of the ethical standards of 
the different professions — in how far are they socially 
minded, in how far self-regarding; can the professions be 
made more democratic? Should they become professional 
gfuilds? How can the idea of the obligation for public serv- 
ice be extended among the professions? Can the enthu- 
siasm of the war-time service to the Government be per- 
petuated to any appreciable degree ? To what extent do the 
professions now supply the quality and scope of service 
needed by all classes of society? How can the professional 
man get into right relations with all salary and wage earners 
who come under his direction? Can the professions repre- 
sent the public interest in matters of labor adjustments? 



WHO ARE PROFESSIONAL WORKERS? 7 

How can education for the professions be made more real 
as to problems of the day? How can the average profes- 
sional establishment be made more democratic, and so ad- 
vance the education of both masters and men? What can 
be done to spread, in the high schools and colleges, knowl- 
edge of the significance, ideals, and functions of the sev- 
eral professions? 

A practical attempt to distinguish professional and non- 
professional workers was made in instructions sent out in 
February, 1919, to field offices of the women's service of the 
Professional Section of the War-Emergency United States 
Employment Service: — 

"Applicants for professional registration shall present 
satisfactory evidence that they are doing, or are qualified to 
do, work of a professional character; and that their needs 
cannot be met through other sections of the U. S. Employ- 
ment Service. 

"Workers doing routine work under the direction of 
others, using a simple mechanical operation or any simple 
skill or practice easily learned and not requiring long edu- 
cation and experience, or the exercise of any considerable 
initiative or independent judgment in dealing with either 
people or things, shall not be registered as professional 
workers, unless they are undertaking such routine work 
with a definite professional purpose and for a limited period 
of time as apprentice workers. Among such non-profes- 
sional workers shall be grouped, unless they present evi- 
dence to the contrary, the following types of worker: — 
bookkeepers ; cashiers ; clerks ; collectors ; commercial ma- 
chine operators ; foremen ; inspectors, testers, etc. ; retail 
salespeople ; stenographers ; telegraph and telephone opera- 
tors ; typists. 

"In general, a worker shall be considered professional who 
is equipped by ability, education, and experience to main- 
tain and to improve standards of operation in the work in 
which she is engaged; to know both why it goes right and 
what to do when it goes wrong. She is therefore qualified 
to assume positions of increasing responsibility in one or 
more of the following capacities : 



8 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

"(i) Administrative, executive, and managerial work: 
planning and supervising the carrying out of serious un- 
dertakings. 

"(2) Expert work of a technical character : medicine, law, 
engineering, laboratory science; investigation and research 
of any kind — economic, industrial, educational, social, sta- 
tistical, scientific ; mastery and use of a special subject-mat- 
ter and technique. 

"(3) Special services not falling under (i) or (2) : teach- 
ing, library work, social work, journalism, advertising and 
publicity, wholesale salesmanship, etc. 

"While the type of work done, rather than any specific 
kind and amount of education, shall determine professional 
standing, education is important evidence in registering 
workers as professional. . . . College education is at least 
presumptive evidence that an applicant is a professional 
worker. College graduates without experience or profes- 
sional training shall be registered as professional appren- 
tices and be given professional information and guidance. 

"No applicant with less than a full high-school education 
or its equivalent shall be registered as a professional worker 
without careful inquiry into her subsequent training and 
experience." 

A mark of the professional worker too often considered 
of minor importance is practice providing adequate liveli- 
hood, although, as we have seen, it is theoretically held that 
pursuit of a profession in the spirit of trade or the mak- 
ing of profits seriously compromises professional character. 
Further reflection shows that this is an essential and not a 
superficial attribute, bound up with the maintenance of pro- 
fessional integrity, responsibility, and intellectual freedom. 
The stress falls upon the adjective "adequate," since both 
shortage and surplus interfere with the highest professional 
accomplishment. Inadequate livelihood hampers the pro- 
fessional worker by distracting his mind from professional 
problems and interests and by restricting his opportunities 
for professional and personal growth and satisfactions. 
Pursuit of profits hampers him equally in another way, by 
substituting a different set of problems and interests for his 



WHO ARE PROFESSIONAL WORKERS ? 9 

professional problems and interests. In spite of workers 
who have achieved professional distinction and reputation 
under conditions of great poverty or great wealth, it re- 
mains psychologically true that both unpaid bills and fat 
dividends are hostile to the soundest professional develop- 
ment. **It may be doubted," says Graham Wallas, ''whether 
the life of the professional writer without other resources 
has not destroyed as much thought as it has produced." ^ 
The growing number of research foundations and research 
fellowships in this country; the European practice of gov- 
ernment grants to especially promising young workers ; the 
belated recognition that college and university teaching can- 
not be fruitfully carried on by faculties perpetually harassed 
by the struggle to educate their children, to present a decent 
personal appearance, to secure needed vacations or oppor- 
tunities for further study — all illustrate this position. 

Professor Palmer thus describes the professional atti- 
tude toward the matter of livelihood: *'It is seen that the 
professional man must live while doing work which is mani- 
festly of value to the public, and accordingly a stipend, fee, 
honorarium, or salary is provided to cover that mode of 
life which is thought appropriate for him, the kind of life 
and the consequent scale of salary being designed to secure 
three essential elements in his work, namely, freedom, effi- 
ciency, and dignity. These elements and not money are 
what the professional man and his public regard. ... So 
long as he has a due degree of freedom, is able to work 
with full efficiency, and can maintain the dignity which his 
calling demands, his mind is discharged from monetary con- 
siderations." ^ The professional worker, he says, sells ex- 
perience, judgment, advice. **We have no other merchan- 
dise than ourselves." He is not working for profits nor on 
a rate basis, so much work for so much pay. 

It is a sign of the times that the term ''private practice" 
is coming to have a faintly obsolete sound, as a term in- 
compatible with the non-competitive and public character of 
professional work. We hear more of "independent prac- 
tice" or "consulting practice" or "group practice." Profes- 

^The Great Society (1914), p. 187. 
^ Trades and Professions, p. 9. 



10 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

sional workers are becoming in much larger numbers sal- 
aried persons ; and where they charge fees do so increas- 
ingly in accordance with a rate agreed upon by their group 
and publicly known. The idea is becoming established that 
they are workers in the public interest and officially or un- 
officially in the public service, earning a livelihood commen- 
surate with their professional value, but not concerned with 
profits. H. G. Wells writes thus of the motives and the 
rewards of professional workers : *The real necessary work 
of the world — I don't mean the labor and toil only, but 
the intelligent direction, the real planning and designing and 
inquiry, the management and the evolution of ideas and 
methods — is in the enormous majority of cases done by sal- 
aried individuals. . . . All the engineering design, all archi- 
tecture, all our public services, the exquisite work of our 
museum control, for example, all the big wholesale and re- 
tail businesses, almost all big industrial concerns, mines, es- 
tates — all these things are really in the hands of salaried or 
quasi-salaried persons. . . . For all who really make, who 
really do, the imperative of gain is the inconvenience, the 
enemy. Every artist, every scientific investigator, every 
organizer, every good workman, knows that. Every good 
architect . . . can tell of time after time when he has sacri- 
ficed manifest profit and taken a loss to get a good thing 
done as he wanted it done; every good doctor, too, has 
turned from profit and high fees to the moving and inter- 
esting cases, to the demands of knowledge and public health ,* 
every teacher worth his or her salt can witness to the per- 
petual struggle between business advantage and right 
teaching; every writer has faced the alternative of his 
aesthetic duty and the search for beauty on the one hand 
and the 'salable' on the other." ^ 

This growing detachment of professional workers from 
the competitive struggle for profits gives ground for an 
affirmative answer to the question posed by the Inter-Profes- 
sional Conference : "Can the professions represent the pub- 
lic interest in matters of labor adjustments?" In many 
ways they seem to stand at present as the ideal mediators 
between capital and labor and to be preeminently the group 

* New Worlds for Old ( 1908) , pp. 95, 98, 



WHO ARE PROFESSIONAL WORKERS? ii 

thus described: "The Public is the name of those who in 
any crisis are seeking the truth and not advocating their 
dogma. The idea of the Public is simply a short way of 
expressing the great faith that a group of men and women 
will always disentangle themselves from their prejudices and 
will be sufficiently powerful to summon the partisans before 
the bar of reason." ^ But it is only fair to say that neither 
party to the controversy is fully ready to admit their com- 
petence. 

To secure some basis for an answer to our second ques- 
tion: W^hat, to-day, may justly be considered professional 
occupations? — it is well to look briefly at the social origins 
and social functions of certain professions. Students of 
social evolution have pointed out that the "learned profes- 
sions" originated as groups charged with the repairing of 
tribal damage and injury: — ^the medicine-man the damage of 
disease and bodily hurt, conceived of as due to evil spells; 
the judge the damage of violations of tribal code ; the priest 
the damage of violations of tribal ritual. All dealt with 
lapses and interruptions, with what may be called pathologi- 
cal social conditions. Only gradually, of course, were their 
functions differentiated. From this point of view, the tribal 
artist contended against disintegrating influences of indi- 
vidual emotion and behavior through' stirring group feeling 
and group action by means of tribal song, dance, dramatic 
representation, and decoration. The teacher emerged from 
the group of elders as the person charged with repairing 
the damage done to the adult standards of the tribe through 
the constant introduction of immature members, in this case 
a biological rather than a pathological deviation. Professor 
Palmer says that all professions are "redemptive" in char- 
acter. They arose as agencies for the restoration and main- 
tenance of group integrity and well-being, and became di- 
rectly concerned with group regulation and control. It is 
no wonder that they have often become conservative in the 
false as well as in the true sense of the term. 

To-day, however, the professions are laying stress upon 
their constructive as well as their reconstructive functions. 
Medicine is increasingly preventive, concerned with the task 
* Walter Lippmann. New Republic, November 12, 1919. 



12 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

of keeping people well and raising health standards as well as 
with the task of curing disease ; law is striving to strengthen 
the conception of justice and to make people law-abiding 
and law-respecting as well as to punish law-breakers ; the 
church upholds the pattern of the righteous man rather 
than the horrible example of the sinner; the school seeks 
not only to bring the young to the educational level of their 
elders but to work through them for a higher level. Posi- 
tively or negatively, therefore, professional workers have 
to do with the maintenance and improvement of organized 
society and the individuals composing it. Their primary 
concern is always with "men as men"; and the profession- 
ally-minded person keeps this idea alive under the techni- 
calities and details of his active professional work. He is 
always in a deep and large sense a humanist. 

From this point of view of the professions as agencies of 
social regulation and improvement, they may be classified 
as : ( i) Professions directly regulating and improving human 
behavior, dealing directly with people: government, law, 
the ministry, medicine and nursing, teaching, social service, 
personnel service, other types of applied psychology. (2) 
Professions indirectly regulating and improving human be- 
havior through supplying the conditions for satisfactory liv- 
ing: scientific agriculture and forestry, engineering in all 
its forms, architecture, applied biology, chemistry, physics, 
and mathematics, scientific organization, management, and 
research. (3) Professions indirectly regulating and improv- 
ing human behavior through supplying concrete incentives 
to thought, emotion, and action : journalism and publishing, 
literature and the other arts, religion in its more personal 
aspects. 

In any such classification the overlappings and interlac- 
ings are obvious, and reveal the close and intricate pattern 
of modern life and work. Government is concerned with 
the dissemination of information and with the regulation 
of material conditions quite as much as it is with the direct 
regulation of people. The ministry is shifting from direct 
control through constituted church authority to indirect con- 
trol through religious ideas, emotions, and examples. Archi- 
tecture stimulates aesthetic feeling as well as providing ma- 



WHO ARE PROFESSIONAL WORKERS? 13 

terial shelter. All the material processes and operations of 
modem life are on so vast a scale that multitudes of people 
are occupied in the different stages of making things ready 
for human use. The forester, the engineer, the chemist, 
have to deal not only with timber and machinery and chemi- 
cal substances and reactions but also with the innumerable 
workers through whom these things result in marketable 
products. They have to meet complicated matters of human 
behavior at almost every turn. Some of the leading schools 
of forestry and engineering are giving serious attention to 
the human aspects of these professions, the "behavior pat- 
terns" and "behavior controls" involved in them. All pro- 
fessional schools need to do so, to realize that every profes- 
sion has its human and psychological side as well as its 
technical side. All professions are social services, and "pro- 
fessional relations" need to be studied as carefully and im- 
partially as industrial relations. 

This line of thinking leads to three further considerations, 
which can be only presented here but which will be de- 
veloped in succeeding chapters. They are (i) the extent 
to which professional workers shall regulate the condi- 
tions of their own employment; (2) the extent to which 
professional workers shall regulate the conditions govern- 
ing the employment of other groups of workers, indus- 
trial and commercial; (3) the extent to which certain 
workers in the fields of industry and commerce are entitled 
to be considered professional. 

Light on the first point is supplied by the fact that the 
professional worker is essentially a person capable of as- 
suming responsibility and of forming independent judg- 
ments and plans. Otherwise he is a subordinate, a "routi- 
neer." With the modern professional tendency toward sal- 
aried positions and away from independent practice, there 
is a real danger of loss of professional freedom. Teachers 
and government workers, two exclusively salaried groups, 
have long been subject to this limitation. In both teaching 
and government service, however, a vigorous movement is 
on foot to give the workers a share in the administration 
of their institutions, school systems, or departments.^ 
* See National Education Association, Report of Council on Na- 



14 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Eight on the second point is supplied to a considerable 
extent by what has just been said. While the expert has 
never been so greatly in demand in all aspects of modern 
activity, he can no longer do his work successfully as an 
autocrat, but must in some way secure the intelligent and 
willing cooperation of the other workers through whom 
alone he is enabled to carry out his plans and policies. Sid- 
ney Webb said in 1917 to a gathering of British "works 
managers": ''First, let me remind you that you belong to 
a brain-working profession, just as much as do the doc- 
tor, the architect, the engineer, though your profession is 
only now becoming conscious of itself as a distinct pro- 
fession, the profession of management. . . . What the man- 
ager has principally to handle is not wood or metal, but 
human nature, not machinery, but wills. He will remain 
for all time an indispensable functionary, whatever may be 
the form of society." ^ H. L. Gantt, the well-known indus- 
trial engineer, has recently maintained that industry in the 
future must be conducted for production and service and 
not primarily for profits ; that democratic management must 
be in the hands of the engineer, the professional man who 
knows "what to do and how to do it." ^ 

Light on the third point comes from the views just 
quoted. In so far as those regulating industrial and com- 
mercial enterprises and working for their improvement are 
salaried experts, interested in efficient production and dis- 
tribution for the common good rather than in the accumula- 
tion of profits; in so far, even, as they are owners and 
proprietors with these qualifications, they are entitled to 
rank as professional workers. Both industry and commerce 
have long employed many persons belonging to recognized 
professions — lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants, scien- 
tists. To-day, they are developing their own professions of 
industrial management, commercial management, personnel 
management. They are setting up their own bureaus of 

tional Emergency in Education (1919) ; Report of Congressional 
Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries in the Washington 
Civil Service (1920), pp. no, in. 

^ The Works Manager To-Day (1918), pp. 2, 4, 5. 

* Organizing for Work (1919). 



WHO ARE PROFESSIONAL WORKERS? 15 

commercial and industrial research, their own training sys- 
tems for every type of worker. They are cooperating ac- 
tively with universities and colleges in programs of both 
training and research. The Associated Technology Clubs ^ 
have recently inaugurated a movement whereby some three 
hundred industrial corporations representing the major in- 
dustries of the country are cooperating with a large num- 
ber of higher institutions to ''eliminate educational waste 
by drawing joint specifications for men; industries to set 
forth the qualifications that college graduates should have 
and the colleges to state their facilities for meeting these 
needs." The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has 
research arrangements with a large group of industries. 
Ruskin long ago saw the merchant as a professional work- 
er ; ^ Glenn Frank writes to-day on "Making Business a 
Profession." ^ Industry and commerce conceived in these 
terms may accordingly be included in our second group of 
professions, those indirectly regulating and improving hu- 
man behavior through supplying the material conditions for 
satisfactory living. 

From the nature of the professions as human and social 
services springs the disinterestedness which is at least for- 
mally recognized in all codes of professional ethics. The 
worker of true professional spirit will not sacrifice the 
standards and reputation of his profession for any personal 
or partisan ends. There are, as has been said, shallow and 
jealous and snobbish professional loyalties, mere manifes- 
tations of the tribal mind. But there is also an intellectual 
and moral devotion to the cause of a chosen profession that 
is loyalty in the sense in which the term is used by Josiah 
Royce. Professions are not coldly intellectual pursuits. It 
is their enthusiasm, their "devotions to impersonal ends" * 
that make professional workers leaders, creators in the 
conscious remakings of human affairs. They are at least 
supposed to make their professional choices freely as the 

* See Hollis Godfrey. Cooperation between Industry and the 
Colleges. Educational Review. June, 1920, 

" Unto This Last. "The Roots of Honor." 
' Century Magazine, April, 1919. 

* Walter Lippmann. Drift and Mastery (1914), pp. 27, 2S. 



i6 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

result of some native bent or aptitude and thus to be 
bound to them by ties stronger than those of accident or 
exigency. They do their work at its best for "the fun of the 
thing." ^ 

Because of this disinterested loyalty professional workers 
are zealous for their own professional improvement. Their 
minds play actively upon professional problems, and they 
seek to make some contribution to their solution or at least 
to fit themselves for progressively valuable professional 
service. It is highly important, therefore, that professional 
workers keep themselves alert in these respects in spite of 
the drain and pressure of daily professional duties. Every 
profession and not merely teaching should have its "sab- 
batical years," its other special leaves of absence, for profes- 
sional reenforcement and development. By just so far as 
professional workers slip into ruts and are content to "jog 
along" ; by just so far as they become enmeshed in mere 
techniques and lose professional imagination ; by just so far 
as they are harassed and thwarted by narrow circumstances, 
they fail to measure up to the best professional standards, 
and are in danger of falling into the class of "routineers." 

A deeply significant modern point of view looks upon all 
human occupations and the modes of living conditioned by 
them as satisfying or not satisfying fundamental "instinc- 
tive trends" and as leading in many cases to abnormal "re- 
pressions" or "baulked dispositions." ^ Professional occu- 
pations are peculiarly rich in opportunities for normal satis- 
factions, and under right conditions impose few undesirable 
repressions. They afford scope for the exercise in various 
"sublimated" forms of most of the instincts woven into 
the pattern of human behavior — the instinct of curiosity, 
the instinct of mental activity, the instinct of workman- 
ship, the instinct of leadership, the herd or fellowship in- 
stinct, the instincts both of settling and roaming. If pro- 
fessional workers have scant chance for the direct exercise 

* Trades and Professions, p. 14. 

"See Thorstein B. Veblen, The Instinct of Workmanship (1914) ; 
Graham Wallas, The Great Society (1914), Chapter 4; Carleton H. 
Parker, Motives in Economic Life, In Bloomfield's Employment 
Management (1919) ; Helen Marot, The Creative Impulse in In- 
dustry (1918) ; Ordway Tead, Instincts in Indiistry (1918). 



WHO ARE PROFESSIONAL WORKERS? 17 

of the instinct of acquisitiveness or ownership, they may 
find substitutes in the collection of data or copyrights or 
favorable reviews. For the hunting and fighting instincts, 
they have the excitements of proving a hypothesis, of plan- 
ning a building or a campaign, of conquering a disease — all 
the moral equivalents of war so incomparably set forth by 
William James/ Beyond most people living and working 
under modern conditions, professional workers have both 
an opportunity and an obligation to become adequate human 
beings,^ free from "personality and conduct disorders." 

In fact, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the true 
professional worker in any field, whether he be doctor, 
teacher, engineer, scientist, ''social worker," or business ex- 
ecutive intelligently shouldering responsibility, has in him 
something of the artist, the maker. He knows the joy of 
craftmanship, the play of constructive imagination, the emo- 
tional tingle that accompanies the endeavor to embody an 
idea in concrete form, the glow and heightened sense of life 
and capacity that mark the accomplishment of a delicate and 
difficult piece of work well done and recognized as such by 
fellow- workers. In such experiences and such satisfactions 
lie his greatest rewards. 

^Memories and Studies (1911). "The Moral Equivalent of War." 
See also in the same volume, "The Social Value of the College- 
Bred." 



CHAPTER II 

WOMEN AS PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Women in particular at this juncture need to take stock 
of their professional situation and prospects. The past five 
or six years have undoubtedly done much to advance and 
define their professional status. New doors have been set 
ajar and old doors set wider open. . They stand at the be- 
ginning of a period which may be notable for their profes- 
sional as well as their political enfranchisement and prog- 
ress. But it is no time for easy optimism nor for relaxed 
eifort. There is considerable reaction from the professional 
hospitalities extended during the war ; and women who 
worked shoulder to shoulder with men are discovering that 
the masculine shoulder may again be coldly turned. It is a 
time rather for women to think clearly and resolutely about 
the requirements and obligations of professional life ; to 
recognize that they cannot expect at the same time full pro- 
fessional recognition and the full privileges of leisure. They 
must admit frankly that even to-day they are far less fully 
and unequivocally professional than men and in many fields 
still professional beginners. They have special problems of 
their own to meet and solve, such as the basic problem of 
combining a professional career with marriage and parent- 
hood. In addition, they will have to forge ahead for some 
time to come against a professional psychology which for- 
gets all about them even more frequently than it objects 
to them, and is prone to include all women in certain sweep- 
ing generalizations: — ^that the prospect of marriage makes 
them a shifting and undependable labor supply; that they 
are not willing to stand squarely on their record as workers, 
but evade responsibility for mistakes by falling back on the 
personal and social; that they lack group spirit and group 
standards ; that they are detail-minded and not plan-minded ; 

18 



WOMEN AS PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 19 

that they are more appropriately assistants and substitutes 
than directors and organizers — a sort of innately secretarial 
sex. 

Professional women will disprove assertions of this kind 
— which contain an element of truth — not so much by point- 
ing out that they rest largely on a confusion between "stop- 
gap" workers and professional workers, and that individual 
differences are immeasurably greater than sex differences/ 
as by displaying professional competence and tenacity of a 
high order and by refusing to accept either privileges or dis- 
abilities on the ground of sex. For the present, since they 
are helping to establish the professional position of women, 
they are called upon to demonstrate courage and stability to 
an even greater extent than men of the same professional 
equipment and at the same time to avoid the pitfalls of sex 
rivalry or sex exploitation. In the long run, they will suc- 
ceed in proportion to the extent to which they meet pro- 
fessional standards as workers and citizens and not as 
women, while recognizing that these standards are not final 
revelations but part of a group process, to which they have 
something to contribute. The professional groups of the 
future, far more than of the past, will be composed of both 
men and women, and their standards and policies will be 
shaped by both. Just what changes and distributions of 
effort this will bring about remain to be seen, although they 
will undoubtedly arise. Present opinions are based on far 
too slender an array of fact and experience to be of much 
value. But it is highly important to remember in this con- 
nection that a profession is not merely an intellectual ac- 
quirement but a way of Hfe involving many instinctive and 
emotional adjustments. Women as relative newcomers will 
have to make these adjustments in larger measure than men, 
and at the same time to modify in more respects their social 
and personal arrangements. The next few years will re- 
quire large-mindedness and patience and imaginative insight 
on the part of both men and women in the professions. 
But there is every hope that mutual tolerance and under- 
standing and goodwill will grow out of a closer association 

* See H. L. Hollingworth, Vocational Psychology (1916), Chap- 
ter 10. 



20 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

in common objective efforts, \n spite of the fact that the 
professional group, like the family group, contains within 
itself tendencies toward antagonism as well as toward co- 
operation. 

Meanwhile, the indirect gains of professional women 
from the war period are greater than the direct gains, and 
are largely psychological. Women are thinking of them- 
selves as professional workers, and men are thinking about 
them, with a new seriousness and a new vividness. Even 
their discovery that they are not so important as they 
thought themselves to be during the war puts them upon 
their professional mettle. This new professional aware- 
ness of women comes fortunately at a time when the world 
is considering as never before the relations of all groups 
of workers to one another and their respective contributions 
to a just, decent, and satisfactory social order; it is, indeed, 
one of its manifestations, since women in general have been 
among the "forgotten groups." It comes fortunately also 
just when the professions themselves are acquiring an un- 
precedented public importance and a new flexibility of mind. 

A real psychological advantage of women going into the 
professions in the present troubled and unstable period Hes 
in the fact that they confront its difficulties and possibili- 
ties with a freshness and disinterestedness that to some ex- 
tent compensate for their inexperience in the world of af- 
fairs. They deal with the situation in hand, unhampered by 
old professional and political and business entanglements, by 
catchwords and conventions that clog thinking and impede 
action. Their professional innocence is a real asset if it be 
free from an undue docility and timidity on the one hand 
and an airy self-confidence on the other. Most of all will 
it be an asset if it enable women to avoid professional pom- 
posity and to acquire the real spirit of craftsmanship, respect 
for the work to be done, whatever it is, and for fellow 
workers, which is at the bottom of all worthy self-respect 
and social usefulness. 

Professional women need to gain perspective and back- 
ground by thinking of themselves as workers among other 
groups of workers and by measuring themselves against 
men as well as women. Just now it is impossible to do 



WOMEN AS PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 21 

this fairly by means of statistics, since our only available 
census figures are ten years old, and conspicuous changes 
in the position of women workers have occurred within the 
decade. Moreover, the professional classification of the 
1910 census is as mysterious in its inclusions as in its omis- 
sions. Nevertheless a few citations may be suggestive and 
convenient for comparison with the 1920 figures when they 
appear. 

In 1910 over 80 per cent of all males ten years of age 
and over were in gainful occupations; over 23 per cent of 
all females. In the thirty years between 1880 and 1910, 
the percentage of men employed increased only a little more 
than 3 per cent; the percentage of women 58 per cent. 
Of all persons engaged in gainful occupations, 21.2 per 
cent, or more than one in five, were women, ranging from 
I per cent in mining to 67.1 per cent in domestic and per- 
sonal service. The percentage of women workers varied 
considerably in different sections of the country, being high- 
est in the industrial states of New England and in the agri- 
cultural south, where colored women work in the fields. All 
told, there were in 1910 over eight million women in gainful 
occupations, including women doing outdoor work on home 
farms but not including women doing their own housework, 
A recent estimate places the number of wage-earning 
women at approximately eleven millions, eight millions of 
whom are between fourteen and twenty-one years of age. 

Of the eight million women workers in 1910, 733,885, or 
8.3 per cent, as against only 3.8 per cent of men workers, 
were listed as professional. Women formed 44.1 per cent of 
the total professional group, a more nearly equal number 
of men and women than in any other large occupational 
division. Professional men and women together, however, 
formed only 4.8 per cent of all workers. Any elation at 
the proportionally larger number of women in the profes- 
sional group is quickly dissipated by the discovery that the 
bulk of women professional workers were actors, authors, 
artists and teachers of art, musicians and teachers of music, 
school teachers, and trained nurses, the very occupations in 
which professional standards are most elastic. In the other 
occupational divisions, 12.9 per cent of the workers in trade 



22 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

were women; 16.6 per cent of the workers in agriculture; 
1 7. 1 per cent of the workers in manufacturing industry; 34.2 
per cent of the workers in clerical service. Between 1880 
and 19 10 the figures show a steady decrease in the percent- 
ages of women employed in unskilled and personal services 
and a steady increase in the percentages employed in skilled, 
clerical, and professional services. The census of 1920 may 
be expected to present much more startling evidence of the 
emergence of women from the ranks of the unskilled. 

In 1910 the percentage groupings of women in the vari- 
ous occupations classified under professional service were 
as follows: Of architects, chemists, clergymen, draftsmen, 
engineers, and lawyers, less than i per cent were women; 
of doctors and dentists, less than 10 per cent; of college 
presidents and teachers, designers, editors and reporters, less 
than 25 per cent; of actors, artists and sculptors, authors, 
and teachers of athletics and dancing, less than 50 per cent ; 
of musicians and teachers of music, religious and charity 
workers, school teachers, and trained nurses, more than 50 
per cent. Eighty per cent of teachers and 92 per cent of 
trained nurses were women. The classification does not 
recognize professional librarians, accountants, actuaries, or 
statisticians; it provides inadequately for many types of 
scientist and engineer; it relegates social workers to semi- 
professional pursuits under the headings "religious and 
charity workers" and "keepers of charitable and penal 
institutions," where they are in strange company with for- 
tune-tellers, hypnotists, theatrical owners and managers ; it 
has no place for experts in industrial and commercial man- 
agement. In view of these and other inadequacies, it is dis- 
couraging to learn from the Federal Bureau of the Census 
that no important changes have been made in the Four- 
teenth Census in the list of occupations given under profes- 
sional service. 

The rates of increase of men and women in some of the 
professions during the thirty years between 1880 and 1910 
are worth noting. In law, the number of men nearly 
doubled; the number of women increased nearly eighteen- 
fold, from 75 to 1,343. In medicine, men gained by about 
two-thirds ; women five-fold. Men dentists more than 



WOMEN AS PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 23 

trebled ; women dentists increased twenty-fold. Men archi- 
tects increased nearly five-fold; women architects seven- 
teen-fold, although in actual numbers only from 17 to 302. 
Men journalists were two and a half times as numerous in 
1910 as in i88o; women journalists were fourteen times as 
numerous. 

A census of college women taken in 191 5 under the aus- 
pices of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae,^ and includ- 
ing 16,739 graduates of eight eastern colleges for women 
and Cornell University, showed that 67.7 per cent of these 
women had been at some time in gainful occupations, and 
that 42.7 per cent were so engaged in 1915. Of those at any 
time employed, 83.5 per cent were teachers ; 22 per cent 
w^ere in other occupations. Of those at work when the cen- 
sus was taken, 70.3 per cent were teachers; 29.7 per cent 
were in other occupations. Of employed women graduating 
from college between the years 1880 and 1890, 27.5 per 
cent were in non-teaching occupations ; of women graduat- 
ing between 1910 and 1915, 34.5 per cent. In the 1910 cen- 
sus 65.6 per cent of the women classified as professional, 
were school and college teachers; 34.4 per cent were 
in other occupations. Among the teachers in the college 
census, 30 per cent had done graduate work of an academic 
character ; among the non-teaching group, only 14.3 per 
cent. Of this last group, however, 38.9 per cent had taken 
special professional or vocational training. Of 950 women, 
30.5 per cent reported training after graduation in social 
work ; 29.4 per cent in secretarial work ; 22 per cent in medi- 
cine ; 9.2 per cent in nursing, and 9 per cent in law. It is 
to be hoped that this census of college women may be 
taken again in 1925 and may include women graduates of 
coeducational institutions. Perhaps by that time it may be 
possible also to make some comparisons with a similar 
group of college men. The occupational facts of the decade 
between 191 5 and 1925 are sure to yield conclusions of 
exceptional value. 

Of more direct importance to women planning to become 
professional workers are their facilities for securing thor- 

*Mary Van Kleeck, A Census of College Women. Journal of 
Association of Collegiate Alumnce, May, 1918. 



24 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

ough professional education. Most of the professional 
schools of high standing are now open to them. The past 
two years have seen the bars let down by the medical schools 
connected with Harvard, Columbia, and Washington Uni- 
versity in Saint Louis, and by the American Institute of 
Banking. Among law schools of the first rank, Harvard 
and Columbia stand practically alone in refusing to admit 
them. Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, the state universities and schools of agricul- 
ture and mechanic arts, afford opportunities of the best for 
engineering and other forms of technical and scientific train- 
ing. University schools of education, journalism, business 
administration, and salesmanship very generally admit them 
freely. Women students predominate in the schools of 
social work. Several institutions for women of the type 
of Simmons College in Boston provide a four years' col- 
lege course combining liberal and professional education. 
Bryn Mawr College offers graduate work of a professional 
character in social and industrial services, and Smith Col- 
lege is working toward the same end by another route. In 
fact, in the past, there have been more opportunities for 
professional training formally open to women than there 
have been women ready to avail themselves of them. This 
has been conspicuously true in coeducational and state- 
supported institutions. But there have nevertheless been 
very real barriers of a psychological sort in the professional 
schools in which men predominate and in which the instruc- 
tion and field practice have been organized with only men 
in mind. In some of the newer fields, women will have 
to emulate for a time the courage of the pioneer women in 
medicine. 

But even in these fields, they will be reinforced by the new 
professional courage and initiative gained by women during 
the war period and by the amazing extension of interest in 
higher and professional education which is manifesting itself 
both in the United States and in Great Britain, and which 
is as great among employers as among the new generation 
of students. This interest is predominatingly due to the 
signal services of professional experts during the war and 
to the realization that the types of men and women most 



WOMEN AS PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 25 

needed can be supplied only through prolonged and appro- 
priate courses of training. Chemists, engineers, public- 
health doctors and nurses, food producers and conservators, 
employment or personnel managers, industrial and trade 
research workers and statisticians, community workers, 
"Americanization" workers, psychiatric social workers, oc- 
cupation therapists, have all been in the public eye. Their 
very titles are in some cases novel. The intensive courses 
of training for war services given by government depart- 
ments, by educational institutions, and by large business 
corporations have both widened the range of professional 
training and demonstrated the results of new methods, 
which are being incorporated into the educational system. 
Colleges, universities, and professional schools are crowded 
as never before, and extension courses are in such demand 
that they furnish a social challenge to all higher institu- 
tions. But it must be remembered that all this is only an 
acceleration of a movement in progress for a generation. 
The reports of the United States Commissioner of Educa- 
tion show that between 1900 and 1916 the attendance of 
men upon higher educational institutions more than trebled ; 
the attendance of women more than quadrupled. Of the 
95,000 women students in 1915-1916, about three-fourths 
were in coeducational institutions. Practically twice as 
many women were graduated in that year as in 1907, ten 
years before. In 1915-1916, women received about two- 
thirds as many bachelors' degrees as men and about half 
as many masters' degrees. But with respect to the degree 
of doctor of philosophy and scientific and professional de- 
grees, they still fell far behind. 

A striking manifestation of the new interest in profes- 
sional education is the multipHcation of fellowships and 
scholarships to promote study along vocational lines. 
Women need to be particularly alert to these opportunities 
and to see that qualified women receive them in suitable 
proportion, and that whenever new funds are provided, 
the interests of women are duly recognized. The numerous 
scholarships for discharged soldiers established by the War- 
Work Organizations and by the American Legion illustrate 
the present tendency, and are a direct outgrowth of the 



26 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

educational work undertaken for the American forces over- 
seas. The recently established Institute of International 
Education is administering a number of exchange fellow- 
ships in foreign universities, particularly in France and 
Scandinavia, open to men and women ; the National Re- 
search Council with the aid of the Rockefeller Founda- 
tion is offering fellowships to persons prepared to carry 
on advanced scientific and industrial research ; the Research 
Bureau for Retail Training of the Carnegie Institute pro- 
vides eight fellowships ; commercial and industrial associa- 
tions are extending their policy of maintaining at univer- 
sities research fellowships in subjects pertaining to their 
special interests; the New School for Social Research is 
seeking to establish fellowships with a substantial stipend 
for political and economic research; the American Red 
Cross has appropriated $100,000 for public health scholar- 
ships for graduate nurses who have been in war service ; 
the Women's Farm and Garden Association is giving schol- 
arships in agricultural colleges for women who were mem- 
bers of the Women's Land Army or who did other war 
work on the land; various agencies are providing graduate 
scholarships and fellowships for physicians. 

There are, besides, older fellowship opportunities to 
which women are eligible and a few especially for them. 
The Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston 
offers three fellowships in economic and industrial research ; 
the Intercollegiate Community Service Association, formerly 
the College Settlements Association, three in social and 
community service. Vassar and Smith each has a vocational 
fellowship open to its own graduates. The Association 
of Collegiate Alumnae administers the Sarah Berliner Re- 
search Fellowship in Science and other vocational fellow- 
ships. Bryn Mawr College provides several Carola Woeris- 
hoffer fellowships in social research; Swarthmore College 
has the Martha E. Tyson fellowship for women teachers. 
The University of California has the Preston School of 
Industry fellowships for research in agriculture, law, politi- 
cal science, social economics, applied psychology, and medi- 
cine, open to men and women. The New York School of 
Social Work and similar schools offer special fellowships ; 



WOMEN AS PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 27 

and schools of public health and industrial medicine are 
doing likewise. Nearly all professional schools offer fellow- 
ships and scholarships of some kind; and fellowships in 
academic graduate schools have a professional bearing on 
teaching, social and economic service, applied psychology, 
and applied science. It has been suggested that the federal 
government establish fellowships for research in connection 
with government departments. Many organizations and in- 
dividuals are making special grants for research to be car- 
ried on in colleges and universities. 

Closely allied to the provision of fellowships is the recent 
establishment through endowment or through cooperative 
or individual effort of a number of institutions for special 
types of work or for special groups of workers. Among 
these may be mentioned the Juillard and Eastman music 
foundations, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Art Foundation, 
the New School for Social Research, the Babson Institute 
for Training in Business Fundamentals, the trade union 
colleges in Boston, Washington, Chicago, and elsewhere. 
Most of these institutions are explicitly or implicitly open 
to women, or announce that they will be "as soon as prac- 
ticable." 

Professional women need to take a lively interest in 
these newer educational enterprises, to participate in them 
whenever possible, and to share in the shaping of them to 
sound and democratic ends. They need to see that the free 
interests of women students are provided for in the pres- 
sure of numbers upon the colleges and universities ; above 
all, that higher educational opportunities for women be 
made as democratically open to all social and economic 
groups as they have been made for men through the pro- 
visions for returned soldiers. Women can do no better 
work for education and for the community than to establish 
scholarships and fellowships for women in a wide range 
of professional fields and to stimulate the attendance upon 
colleges and professional schools of women from the in- 
dustries, trades, and distributive occupations. The school 
for active workers of the Women's Trade Union League 
has made beginnings in this direction. A system of ex- 
change of students between the academic colleges and the 



28 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

trade-union colleges would be a valuable experiment. And 
the academic colleges might well be used during the summer 
vacations to provide special educational facilities for indus- 
trial and clerical workers. 

Professional women should likewise at the beginning of 
this new period give serious thought to the matter of pro- 
fessional associations of various types: those not admit- 
ting women; those admitting women but organized and 
controlled by men; those separately organized and con- 
trolled by women ; and those cooperatively organized and 
controlled by men and women together. Women are com- 
monly supposed not to be a "clubbable sex.'' They are 
indeed only just coming to recognize the value of associa- 
tions as a means of fostering professional spirit and main- 
taining and raising professional standards. But their pres- 
ent relative detachment gives them a chance to study the 
activities of such bodies and to find out to what extent 
they genuinely serve the profession and the community ; to 
what extent they merely encourage the spirit of exclusive- 
ness and prestige. 

It is commonly assumed that women should seek mem- 
bership in the men's associations which their professional 
affiliations entitle them to enter. Many women so doing 
have been at least outwardly satisfied with mere member- 
ship, and have timorously and uncomfortably attended meet- 
ings in which they have taken no part, and in which they 
have been ignored and sometimes discriminated against, in- 
tentionally or unintentionally. But the modern profes- 
sional woman is not timorous, and this sort of thing is 
undoubtedly passing. For the present, however, there is a 
good deal to be said in favor of retaining the various types 
of professional association and using now one and now 
another as it seems the fittest instrument for accomplishing 
a definite end. There is still some danger of women becom- 
ing mere ''paper members" of organizations in the direction 
of which they have no real voice; and it is often the part 
of practical wisdom for women to organize a separate 
association and thus to gain confidence and experience that 
will win a hearing in later joint associations. Having 
shown what they can do, such bodies are frequently urged 



WOMEN AS PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 29 

to share in forming a single organization. Separate asso- 
ciations of women are thus far more a means of education 
in managing affairs than they are manifestations of a sep- 
aratist and feminist spirit. They represent merely a stage 
in the professional evolution of women; and the ideal 
toward which to work is assuredly the single professional 
association with women as officers and committee members 
as well as in the silent rank and file. Work for the suffrage 
and war service have done much to destroy the popular 
superstition that women lack the power to shape policies, 
meet emergencies, and carry out programs. 

The position of women as members of associations varies 
greatly in the different professions. If they are numerous 
in the profession, or if the profession itself has recently 
developed, they commonly have full membership and a 
more or less assured status, as in teaching, social work, 
library work, and employment or personnel management. 
The presidents and other officers of national associations 
in these fields have not uncommonly been women ; and they 
have served on executive committees and boards of direc- 
tors. But even here men hold for the most part the execu- 
tive positions. 

In other professions there are separate associations and 
joint associations ; sometimes both. Women doctors have 
a Medical Women's National Association; and may also 
become members of the American Medical Association. Bar 
associations have been cold to women lawyers, who have 
their own Women Lawyers' Association, with branches in 
thirty-four states. Many legal women, however, prefer to 
seek membership in their local bar associations. The Amer- 
ican Bar Association has only recently admitted women. It 
was a pleasant irony to have the Association of the Bar 
of New York City, which is closed to women, recently 
endorse without qualification the candidacy of a well-known 
woman lawyer for the office of municipal judge. News- 
paper women have press clubs and press associations of 
their own; and there is a League of American Penwomen. 
A Women's National Book Association has recently been 
organized, to which women are eligible who are in any 
way concerned with the publication and distribution of 



30 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

books. There are leagues and clubs of advertising women 
in ten states ; and women are admitted to some of the 
men's associations. Massachusetts and New York have 
associations of insurance women ; but for the most part 
women belong freely to the men's insurance organizations. 
There is a national Woman's Chamber of Commerce, with 
local branches ; but the men's chambers are in many cases 
admitting women to membership. The National Associa- 
tion of Women Painters and Sculptors is well known. 

Professional women are coming also to recognize their 
public responsibilities as members of school-boards and 
boards of trustees or directors of colleges, hospitals, librar- 
ies, and other institutions for public service. In a number 
of states, notably in Massachusetts and Illinois, and more 
recently in New York, as well as commonly in the far 
west, they have served important public boards and com- 
missions both as unpaid members and as paid executives. 
Through the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, college 
women are represented in the new American Council on 
Education, which has a special committee on training women 
for professional service. They are likewise represented in 
the new Institute of International Education, which arranges 
for the exchange of teachers and students between American 
and foreign institutions and in other ways furthers interna- 
tional educational understanding and good will. Profes- 
sional women have serious obligations with reference to 
other organizations of women, such as the National and 
International Councils of Women, the General Federation of 
Women's Clubs, the League of Women Voters, and the 
Women's Trade Union League. 

Since the war there has been a marked interest in pro- 
fessional organization and cooperation. The program of the 
Inter-Professional Conference meeting in Detroit in No- 
vember, 1919, has been given in Chapter i. It was initiated 
by the post-war committee on architectural practice, and 
representative professional women were invited to attend, 
and are serving on committees to plan further development. 
A National Federation of Business and Professional 
Women's Clubs has been established through the good of- 
fices of the National Board of Young Women's Christian 



WOMEN AS PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 31 

Associations, although not under its direct auspices. It is 
organized in most of the states, and has held two enthusias- 
tic and largely attended annual conferences. Shortly after 
the signing of the armistice, the War-Emergency United 
States Employment Service completed the organization of a 
professional section for both men and women workers, 
the operation of which was practically suspended when 
Congress failed to establish the Employment Service on an 
adequate permanent basis. In January, 1920, the National 
Committee of Bureaus of Occupations for Trained Women 
held a conference in New York attended by men and women 
representing universities and colleges, professional associa- 
tions, and professional employment bureaus, to discuss the 
subject of a nation-wide professional employment service 
under non-governmental auspices. A conspicuous current 
movement is the formation of an increasing number of pro- 
fessional unions affiliated with the American Federation of 
Labor and representing especially college professors, school 
teachers, librarians, and journalists. A similar movement is 
going on in Great Britain. The Federal Employees' Union, 
of several years' standing, includes in its membership many 
scientists and other professional experts in the service of 
the government. 

The relations of professional women to marriage and 
parenthood is a topic in too unsettled and transitional a state 
to admit of more than brief consideration. There are still 
many minds on the subject; and the whole matter is bound 
up with a changing psychology of the family both with 
respect to its own members and to the larger social group. 
But it is no longer taken as a matter of course that women 
will entirely give up their professional work when they 
marry, and hence cannot expect to receive serious profes- 
sional consideration. A growing number of professional 
married couples — most of them young — are working out 
the problem together, and making a genuine contribution to 
social adjustment. The question for many women to-day 
is not so much a choice between a profession and mar- 
riage as the question of how they may combine a profes- 
sion and marriage with justice and profit to all concerned. 
There are still many difficulties, some inherent, some the 



32 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

product of social and economic conventions. But there 
seems a prospect that more rather than fewer profes- 
sional women will marry, and that it will no longer be 
exceptional for a married woman to continue her profes- 
sional career, and will even be a matter of course so long 
as she is childless and after her children have reached 
school age. Women doctors, lawyers, and other indepen- 
dent practitioners have for many years found marriage not 
incompatible with carrying on their professional activities. 
An increasing number of women teachers continue their 
work after marriage.^ The flexibility of professional work 
as compared with clerical or industrial work facilitates 
such continuance in many fields. The tendency since the 
war toward the development of "group practice" and "con- 
sulting services" suggests one type of adaptation. Part-time 
work is another. The distributions of work and leisure 
are changing for both men and women. 

Economic pressure is undoubtedly helping to stimulate 
newer ways of thinking about professional women and mar- 
riage. Increased costs of living bear nowhere so heavily as 
upon the salaried groups, clerical and professional. In 
many cases it is only when both father and mother con- 
tribute to the family income that professional people are 
able to maintain a household and to rear children with 
proper provision for health, recreation, and education. But 
the practice has sound psychological and social justification. 
There is a deepening conviction that in order to bring up 
children to be intelligent citizens and workers, both parents 
alike must be intelligent citizens and workers themselves. 
A woman must continue to use her professional equipment 
actively and socially. She cannot adequately meet her obli- 
gations to her own children without at the same time 
meeting her obligations to other children and young people 
of the community, in the school, on the playground, in the 
home, the store, the ofiice, and the factory. The working 
out of simpler standards of living and household routine, the 

^ This is strongly urged in a recent bulletin of the Carnegie Foun- 
dation for the Advancement of Teaching: The Professional Prepa- 
ration of Teachers for American Public Schools. Number Four- 
teen (1920), pp. 139-144, 391. 



WOMEN AS PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 33 

better understanding of the principles and practices gov- 
erning physical and mental health in children, are making it 
practicable as well as desirable to meet both sets of obliga- 
tions and to have one reinforce instead of hindering the 
other. It is being discovered that intelligent direction of a 
child's care and companionship with it during certain hours 
are more fruitful of results and less wasteful than unre- 
mitting attention to its routine needs. The people to whom 
professional women depute some of this routine care are 
likely to be more intelligently chosen than the people to 
whom many women of the leisure type entrust their chil- 
dren for a large part of the time. 

But even if a professional woman finds it necessary or 
advisable to give up active professional work while her chil- 
dren are young, or for other reasons, she can bring profes- 
sional standards and methods to bear upon the problems of 
family and community Hfe, and has a chance to become that 
rare and valuable type of citizen, the "professional volun- 
teer," who can direct other volunteer workers and interpret 
to the supporting and participating public the programs of 
professional experts. She may be an illustration of the 
paradox that to be a good volunteer a person must have 
been a good paid worker, and may become in a valid sense 
a sort of publicity agent for the professional point of view. 
Through such services she will be enabled to keep in touch 
with the progress of her profession against the day of her 
"second leisure," when she is again ready to enter the pro- 
fessional ranks. 

The increasing professional stability of married women 
will do much to^ strengthen the position and improve the 
status of professional women in general, whose advance- 
ment has been retarded on the ground that women are a 
temporary and undependable labor supply because of mar- 
riage and the prospect of marriage. Employers have been 
fond of making rash generalizations about professional 
women based largely on their experience with clerical and 
other routine women. Careful comparative studies are 
needed of the "labor turnover" ^ among men and women 

* See A. J. Todd, The Scientific Spirit and Social Work (1919). 
Chapter VII. 



34 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

in responsible and expert positions as well as among men 
and women routine workers. Some of the following chap- 
ters present evidence from employers who are making such 
studies that in the higher groups the "duration of employ- 
ment" is practically the same for men and women. An- 
other movement which is improving the status of men and 
women alike is described in the next chapter : the drawing 
up of definite specifications for professional workers and 
the devising of objective methods of testing and rating 
upon which to base promotion. 

On all sides to-day there is a new awareness of the 
value of the professional worker and a demand which 
cannot be met for people with a substantial general educa- 
tion, an understanding of the principles which govern human 
conduct, and a professional training which includes actual 
practice in all phases of the work to be done and an 
ability to reflect upon and improve that practice. The pro- 
gressively successful conduct of any important human en- 
terprise is seen to involve: (i) Professional administra- 
tors, superintendents, and managers — the executive group; 
(2) Professional research and technical experts — the re- 
search group; (3) Professional supervisors and instruc- 
tors of beginners and routine workers — the instructional 
group ; (4) Professional service workers under supervision 
— the journeyman group; (5) Professional learners in serv- 
ice — the apprentice group. There appears to be a general 
readiness to admit women to the research and instructional 
groups, and at least a disposition toward giving them a 
fair trial in the executive group. This new professional 
challenge to women is even more searching than the politi- 
cal challenge; and they can meet it only by accepting 
fully their obligation to prepare for positions of responsi- 
bility through serving as professional apprentices and jour- 
neymen. With a chance to come out at the top, they can 
afford to begin at the bottom, as they could not afford to 
do in the old days when they were consigned to a sort 
of professional limbo. In meriting and winning a generous 
recognition as professional workers, they will not only 
win it for other women, but will be adding to the all too 
scanty stock of intelligent and expert and disinterested 



WOMEN AS PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 35 

effort in a sorely confused and harassed world. Graham 
Wallas says of women : "If they do more work, think more 
thoughts, and offer a larger contribution of skilled or- 
ganizers than they do at present to the grievously insuf- 
ficient personnel by which the Great Society is held to- 
gether, we shall be drawing a larger dividend from the 
same body of human capital." ^ 

* The Great Society, p. 348. 



CHAPTER III 

SPECIFICATIONS FOR PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Personnel specifications, or brief descriptions of the 
particular work to be done and the particular worker re- 
quired to do it, together with statements regarding rates of 
pay and lines and methods of promotion, are a new thing 
in the professions. In the industries, where they are be- 
coming well established, they are known as "job specifica- 
tions," and represent a combination of the "job analysis" 
of the planning or "scientific management" department and 
the requisition for workers made upon the employment or 
personnel department.^ They are an indication of the 
growing attention to the psychological side of occupations 
and the growing realization of the human and material 
wastes of occupational vagueness, uncertainties of tenure 
and promotion, lack of objective ratings and incentives, and 
maladjustments of various sorts. The professions have 
been not the least of sinners in these respects ; and there is 
no doubt that clear statements of duties, qualifications, re- 
wards and prospects in professional positions will do much 
to improve the morale and efficiency of professional workers 
and to guide and check up professional education. To se- 
cure their satisfactory operation, professional specifica- 
tions should involve a recognition of definite grades of 
worker and a fair and generally understood system of pro- 
motion from one grade to another. While they are more 
difficult to draw than industrial specifications, they have 
already demonstrated their usefulness, and there is an ac- 

* See H. C. Link, Employment Psychology (1919),, Chapter 20; 
Franklyn Meine, Job Specifications (1920), Bull. Federal Board for 
Vocational Education ; R. W. Kelly, Hiring the Worker ( 1918) ; 
Ordway Tead and Henry C. Metcalf, Personnel Administration 
(1920). 

36 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 37 

tive demand for their further development and for con- 
tinued investigation of their possibilities. 

The most striking examples of professional specifications 
are those prepared during the war by the Army Committee 
on Classification of Personnel, under the direction of Dr. 
Walter Dill Scott, the well-known psychologist. The last 
edition of its "Trade Specifications and Index of Pro- 
fessions and Trades in the Army," issued in November, 
1918, describes some seven hundred types of worker, of 
whom about two hundred may be considered professional. 
There are, for instance, fifty-five specifications for chemists. 
The Committee was at work at the time of the armistice 
upon fuller professional specifications for officers. It de- 
vised a remarkable officers' rating scale, and graded all 
workers as apprentices, journeymen, and experts in their 
several occupations. It has published a detailed account 
of its history and methods, invaluable for civilian work 
along these lines. ^ 

The following model officers' specification illustrates the 
methods of the Committee. Since army pay and promotion 
are in accordance with known regulations, there are no 
statements on these points. 

MODEL SPECIFICATION 

Name of Corps or Arm — Coast Artillery Corps. 

Name of Exact Subdivision or Organization Covered — 

Battery, motorized gun or howitzer. 
Official Designation and Rank of Officer Covered in 

This Specification — Battery commander, captain. 

I. DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES 

It is desired that the duties to be performed shall be 
stated with sufficient clearness to enable the selecting offi- 
cers to secure a comprehensive view of the duties that will 
devolve upon this officer. Duties may fall under the head- 

^ Personnel System of the United States Army (i9i9)» two vol- 
umes. See especially Vol. I, Chapters 13-17. 4^, 43- 



3^ WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

ings listed below, or under headings you may need to add. 
Be specific, comprehensive, and complete. 



Administration 


Technical Duties 


Construction 


Property accountability 


Supply 


Maintenance and repair 


Property responsibility 


Transportation 


Personnel 


Care of equipment 


Engineering 


Procurement 


Instruction and drill 


Finance 


Production 


Tactical and combat duty 


Inspection 


Science and research 



Under these or other heads state just what the officer 
does. 

If the duties in America and abroad are different, state 
the difference. 

Commands four lieutenants and 219-278 men. Respon- 
sible for preparation of company reports and records, for 
the proper equipment of his command and the messing 
of the personnel. Responsible for property of the battery: 
guns or howitzers, motor trucks and tractors ; infantry equip- 
ment of each soldier ; and other company supplies. Respon- 
sible for the training and discipline of officers and men 
as soldiers, and their instruction in loading, firing of guns 
or howitzers, machine guns and small arms, and the proper 
care of them; in motor transportation; in observation, sig- 
naling, and telegraphic communication ; in earthwork con- 
struction ; in gas defense ; and in camouflage. Responsible 
for the tactical movement of his battery (men, guns, and 
equipment); tactical preparation of positions for guns; 
orientation (by means of surveying) ; calculation of firing 
data (involving use of trigonometry and logarithms) ; and 
correction of data when firing and under fire. 

When battery operates independently will assume duties 
of Major — requiring tactical judgment in reconnoissance, 
and initiative in direction and supervision of fire. 

II. FIRST CHOICE OF CIVILIAN OCCUPATION 

That is, the civilian occupation which you consider the 
nearest equivalent to the army position being described, or 
which best fits a person to perform the duties of this officer. 
To the right of this occupation write the number of years 
of experience you think a man should have had in this 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 39 

occupation properly to fit him for the duties which this 
officer performs. 

Occupation Years engaged at it 

Civil engineer 3-5 

III. OTHER CHOICES OF CIVILIAN OCCUPATION 

Supposing a person of the occupation you mentioned 
above as first choice were not available, what other occupa- 
tions would you choose. Give at least three, and the num- 
ber of years engaged. 

Occupation Years Engaged at It 

Electrical or Mechanical Engineer 3-5 

Graduate of recognized technical school 
with business or professional experi- 
ence 3-5 

College graduate with business or profes- 
sional experience 3-5 

IV. SPECIAL TECHNICAL QUALIFICATIONS 

Enter below technical abilities not elsewhere specified. 
Required — Working knowledge of mathematics through 

trigonometry and logarithms. 
Desired — Knowledge of mechanics, electricity, and motor 

transportation. 

V. STAFF CORPS SCHOOL 

Can this officer function immediately upon being com- 
missioned from civil life, or from another branch of the 
service, or will he be required to train at a staff corps school, 
and if so, for how long? 

h ZotTetmred^^'' ^^^^"^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^"^hs. 

VI. AGE LIMITS 

Some positions in the army, but not all, have age limits ; 
that is, the officer should not be older than a certain age, 
nor younger than a certain age, properly to perform the 



40 



WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 



duties required. If you consider that age has any bearing 

on the duties, indicate below : 

Possible age limit , 25-45 years 

Best age limit 30-40 years 

VII. PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS 



This officer must be qualified for full military 
service 

This officer may be qualified for limited service 
only, but must be free from the following dis- 
abilities 



Yes 


No 


v/ 









VIII. SCHOOLING 



In the space below, indicate the 
minimum schooling required in this 
officer. 



Elementary school 

High or secondary school , 

College , 

Professional or technical school. 
Business school or college 



Graduated 


Year com- 
pleted 


Yes 


No 















v 


2 







IX. DEGREE OF LEADERSHIP REQUIRED 



Maximum — Officer actually in charge 
of combatant troops. 

Average maximum — Duties executive. 
Require initiative and 
control of large force. 

Average — Duties largely administra- 
tive routine. 

Nominal— Officer engaged principally 
in research. 



Essential 


Desired 


v/ 

















SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 41 

The Committee on Classification of Personnel thus de- 
fined its use of terms applied to workers of different grades 
of competence and experience : 

*'As employed in this classification the word Apprentice 
must be understood to mean apprentice, a partially skilled 
man, a learner or beginner, not apprentice in the narrow 
technical sense. 

"The word Journeyman must be understood to mean 
the man who has graduated from the preceding class to 
the general practice of his profession or use of the tools 
of the craft, a man of average skill and one capable of 
operating independently — i.e., a journeyman in the usual 
sense. 

"The word Expert must be understood to mean a spe- 
cially skilled professional man or journeyman — that is, a 
workman or specialist who by reason of extensive practice 
or experience as a journeyman or special or unusual expe- 
rience is thoroughly familiar with all the phases of his 
profession or trade." ^ 

The Scott Rating Scale for Officers ^ is based on the idea 
of estimating a man with respect to a given quality or group 
of qualities through comparing him directly with other men 
possessing these qualities in varying degrees. It is a living 
scale, and was the outgrowth of a method of rating sales- 
men which formed part of a five-year study of salesman- 
ship which Dr. Scott was conducting when the United 
States entered the war. In its military application, each 
officer was rated by his immediate superior for five separate 
groups of qualities: physical qualities, intelligence, leader- 
ship, personal qualities, general value to service, each of 
these being subdivided and defined. A separate scale for 
each group was constructed in terms of individual officers 
of the rank for which the officer was being considered; 
i.e., scales for rating lieutenants were made up of captains ; 
for rating captains, of majors. Thus, for the group of phys- 
ical qualities impressing men, each rating officer made a 

^ Trade Specifications and Index, U. S. Army (1918), War De- 
partment Document 774. 

^Personnel System U. S. Army, Vol. I, Chapter 43; Vol. II, Chap- 
ter 12. 



42 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

preliminary list of from twelve to twenty-five officers of his 
own rank known to him, and from this list selected officers 
of the best and worst physical presence to represent the 
two ends of the scale. He then selected an officer midway 
between the two in physical impressiveness, and two others, 
one between the middle and the highest and one between 
the middle and the lowest, so that the scale read: Brown, 
highest; Green, high; Black, middle; White, low; Gray, 
lowest. A similar living scale was made for each of the 
four other groups of qualities, taking care not always to 
use the same men as standards. Each officer to be rated 
was then estimated by a direct man-to-man comparison with 
the officers making up the scales, rating all those to be 
considered by one scale before going on to the next. Each 
place on a scale had a numerical value, the highest 15, the 
lowest 3; but no numerical estimate was made until after 
a man had been directly rated for all five groups of quali- 
ties. Then the sum of the points gave his total rating. 
The actual measurements were always in terms of human 
beings, never in terms of points. It was estimated that 
after a little practice, the making of a scale took about 
twenty minutes, the rating of an officer about sixty seconds. 
Every officer was rerated at the end of three months ; and 
all ratings were reviewed by the immediate superior of 
the rating officer. After the armistice a careful study was 
made by the Committee of the operation of the scale, and it 
was recommended that three independent ratings for each 
group of qualities be made for each officer, his final rating 
to be the average of the three. During the war the rating 
scale was accepted by army officers with a surprising de- 
gree of approval, and was surprisingly accurate in its re- 
sults, keeping the advantages of judgments in personal 
terms and at the same time doing away with individual bias 
and favoritism. 

This rating scale was later adapted by the firm of per- 
sonnel consultants, of which Dr. Scott was the head, to the 
rating of industrial and commercial executives. With a 
proper selection of quality-groups to be rated, it might be 
advantagecwsly applied to the promotion of many kinds of 
professional workers; and its early trial may be hoped for 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 43 

in the fields of teaching, the social services, government 
service, and, in fact, v^herever there are recognized grades 
of service. It has possibilities for the grading of students 
as vi^ell as of teachers. The great merits of the scale are 
that it recognizes the psychological truth that v^e judge 
people in terms of people and not in terms of abstract quali- 
ties ; that it is simple and takes little time ; that it is con- 
sidered fair by both raters and rated. In its non-military 
applications it may be questioned whether there might not 
be ratings by co-workers as well as superiors, and perhaps 
even by subordinates. There might at least be some sys- 
tem of review by the last two groups. 

Another war-time contribution to the problem of select- 
ing and promoting professional workers is to be found 
in the general intelligence tests prepared by the psychologists 
making up the Psychological Division of the Surgeon Gen- 
eral's Office under the direction of Dr. Robert M. Yerkes 
and given to about a million and a half soldiers in the 
camps.^ While their greatest military value lay in the 
detection and weeding out of men of subnormal intelligence, 
they also revealed substantial correlations between superior 
general intelligence and military efficiency. Among officers 
the engineers and other technical services showed the high- 
est averages. In some camps more than 20 per cent of 
the enlisted men reached the A and B ratings which toward 
the end of the war were used in selecting men for com- 
missions. The great value of these general intelligence 
lies in their indication of grades of mental ability irrespec- 
tive of education. They are likely to come into general 
use as a means of sifting out from large groups those with 
capacity for further education, special training, or special 
employment. They can be easily and quickly given to such 
groups and automatically scored. The army tests for liter- 
ates have been used experimentally since the close of the 
war by a number of higher institutions, notably by Columbia 
University, as checks upon entrance examinations or as sub- 
stitutes for them; and may assist in determining both the 
limits and the possibilities of education for different levels 

* See Personnel System of the U. S. Army, Vol. II, Chapter 10; 
C. E. Yoakum and R. M. Yerkes, Army Mental Tests (1920). 



44 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

of intelligence. They apparently always detect the unfit. 
But they do not reveal special aptitudes nor familiarity 
with special subject-matters and techniques. 

For this, special intelligence tests must be provided, which 
are far less fully developed and far more difficult to de- 
vise, although the educational, vocational, and employment 
psychologists are actively at work upon them. Tests of 
vocational aptitude as a basis for vocational guidance and 
tests of vocational competence on the basis of professed 
training or experience, need to be carefully distinguished. 
The Committee on Classification of Personnel made use of 
a remarkable series of performance tests for a number of 
the skilled trades,^ which revealed that of soldiers professing 
trade competence, 30 per cent were novices or wholly inex- 
perienced in the trade ; 40 per cent were apprentices or be- 
ginners; 24 per cent were journeymen, and only 6 per cent 
were experts. Adequate tests for professional workers are 
naturally more difficult to work out and have not been 
seriously attempted except in the traditional forms of exam- 
inations and satisfactory working experience. Dr. Link 
describes tests successfully applied to industrial and clerical 
workers of various kinds, and says: ''Other types of 
work have already been dealt with by other psychologists, 
and as time goes on, this range will undoubtedly increase 
very greatly." But he is doubtful of their applicability at 
present to the choice of *'men for higher positions, execu- 
tives, planners, organizers — the so-called big men. Can 
tests be applied which will make it possible to discover men 
of large caliber and large capabilities? . . . This question 
must frankly be answered in the negative. The psycholog- 
ical method is at the present stage of its development unable 
to select men who possess the exceptional qualities required 
by the exceptional position." ^ Nevertheless, the whole 
matter of selecting, training, and promoting professional 
workers is still so largely haphazard or conventional that 
this line of investigation needs to be carefully and patiently 
followed. The new Inter-Professional Conference or some 

^Personnel System of the U. S. Army, Vol. I, Chapters 28-30; 
Vol. II, Chapter 6. 
^Employment Psychology, pp. 188, 189. 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 45 

other body representing the professions could do nothing 
more useful than to establish a bureau under expert direc- 
tion for the study of tests for the several professions and 
the preparation of adequate specifications, somewhat along 
the lines of the research bureaus for the study of salesman- 
ship maintained under the auspices of the Carnegie Institute 
of Technology. 

Meanwhile, immediate and practical improvement in the 
professions and in professional education appears to be 
coming through the provision of specifications rather than 
through the provision of psychological tests. The indus- 
tries are cooperating with professional associations in draw- 
ing up specifications of the kinds of expert workers they 
require, to be submitted to the colleges and professional 
schools. Federal, state, and city governments are reclas- 
sifying their civil services and furnishing specifications for 
each position and grade. The general readjustment of sal- 
aries to meet the shrinkage of the dollar is furthering the 
process, since the estabHshment of higher salary schedules 
leads to a reformulation of the duties to be performed at 
each salary level. Organized employment or personnel de- 
partments are likewise assisting. 

At the annual meeting of the Technology Clubs Asso- 
ciated in March, 1920, a conference was held between 
representatives of the industries and representatives of the 
colleges and professional schools, at which the present short- 
age of trained executive and technical experts was dis- 
cussed; and it was agreed that the industries should submit 
specifications of the duties and qualifications of profes- 
sional workers needed in their several fields, and the Amer- 
ican Council on Education should circulate these specifica- 
tions among the colleges to assist in bridging the gap be- 
tween preparation and practice. Many of the major indus- 
trial groups were represented, and a plan was worked 
out by means of which a central industrial council is to be 
established, made up of delegates from committees on edu- 
cational problems in each industry. This industrial council 
is to name half the members of a small joint council, the 
other members representing the American Council on Edu- 
cation, which is to review the specifications prepared by the 



46 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

various industries and submit them to the colleges for 
consideration in educational terms. It was held that this 
plan uses the industrial and educational groups in ways in 
which they are respectively expert, and leaves educational 
institutions free to meet the requirements of industry by 
any methods which they consider educationally sound. It 
suggests a way out of the long-standing conflict between 
liberal and vocational education. 

At the conference, specifications were presented by the 
paper, rubber, and shoe industries, including suggestions for 
the use of the student's three undergraduate summer vaca- 
tions in acquiring a general familiarity with "plant" or 
"shop" conditions and practices. Other industries under- 
took to prepare specifications. Some three hundred firms 
are already cooperating, and have pledged specified sums for 
three years to carry out a continuous survey of industrial 
needs and educational facilities. While the chief aim of 
the project is the procurement of technically trained men. 
the growing importance of women in industrial manage 
ment has not been wholly forgotten; and their interests 
will be represented on the joint industrial and educational 
committee through the director of the American Council 
on Education who is also a member of the Council's com- 
mittee on the training of women for professional service. 
The wide educational distribution of these industrial speci- 
fications is bound to have far-reaching consequences for 
both men and women professional workers as well as for 
educational institutions and the industries. It may even 
lead to the drafting of specifications for members of college 
faculties.^ 

The increasing number and variety of professional work- 
ers in government services renders highly significant the 
general movement toward a reorganization and reclassifica- 
tion of these services and the preparation of adequate 
specifications for the positions falling under them. Since 
the war, Great Britain and Canada have reclassified their 
civil services ; and an expert commission has recently sub- 
mitted to the Congress of the United States a proposed re- 

*See Hollis Godfrey. Cooperation between Industry and the 
Colleges, Educational Review, June, 1920, 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 47 

classification of the federal civil service in Washington, now- 
more or less obsolete and chaotic.^ In 1917 standard speci- 
fications were issued covering the civil service of the City 
of New York. In 1918 similar specifications were prepared 
for the civil service of the State of Massachusetts. In 
1919, the Reconstruction Commission appointed by the 
Governor of the State of New York presented a report 
on retrenchment and reorganization in the state govern- 
ment. Unfortunately, these various proposals have not yet 
become law. But Ohio, Illinois, Nebraska, and Idaho have 
put into effect drastic reorganizations of their stat§ services ; 
and other states are considering similar action. Many of 
the examination announcements of the United States Civil 
Service Commission are in effect professional specifications ; 
and the same thing is true to some degree of state and 
municipal announcements. There is a large opportunity to 
make these examinations genuine instead of formal tests 
for both appointment and promotion, utilizing the best 
modern employing methods. The federal Report on Reclas- 
sification, just referred to, recommends that the United 
States Civil Service Commission be made in the full sense 
a centralized personnel agency for the government, work- 
ing through personnel committees in the several depart- 
ments and services and charged with continuous study of 
personnel needs, with the devising of efficiency measure- 
ments for promotions, and with the establishment of systems 
of training workers in government service and representa- 
tive advisory councils of civil service employees. 

The New York City "Standard Specifications for Per- 
sonal Service" are classified under sixteen "services." Each 
service is divided into "groups" and each group into 
"grades" with specified advancements in salary within each 
grade and promotion from one grade to the next higher. 
The Massachusetts state specifications, which are unpub- 
lished, are similarly classified under nine "services" with 
subordinate groups and grades. Institutional positions in 

^Report of the Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries 
in the Washington Federal Service. Submitting a Classification of 
Positions on the Basis of Duties and Qualifications, and Schedules 
of Compensation for the Respective Classes, March, 1920. 



48 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

both are arranged separately. The 1,762 specifications of 
the federal Reclassification Report are arranged under 44 
services and 376 series. Each specification describes a 
"class" of workers performing closely similar duties. As- 
cending classes form a series. They are not numbered but 
are given distinguishing titles. In the ''services involving 
clerical, office, or commercial vi^ork," titles may be illus- 
trated as follov^^s : under clerk, junior clerk, senior clerk, 
principal clerk, head clerk, and chief clerk. In the ''services 
involving scientific, technical, professional, or subsidiary 
v^^ork," the titles are taken from the field of higher educa- 
tion, as junior economist, assistant economist, associate 
economist, economist, senior economist. Every specification 
includes a statement of the range of compensation and of 
the principal lines of promotion. 

All three classifications use the term "professional" in a 
narrower sense than that employed in this book, although 
they vary in the occupations included under it. The New 
York City "Professional Service" includes the accountant 
group with four grades ; the architect group with six grades ; 
the bacteriologist group with four grades ; the chaplain group 
with one grade; the chemist and physicist group with five 
grades ; the dentist group with three grades ; the engineer 
group with six grades; the forester group with one grade; 
the lawyer group with four grades ; the nurse group with 
five grades ; the pathologist group with four grades ; the 
pharmacist group with three grades; the physician group 
with six grades; the veterinarian group with two grades. 
The Massachusetts "Professional Service" includes the 
biologist group with one grade ; the engineering group with 
six grades; the fish and bird culturist group with one 
grade ; the forester group with two grades ; the lawyer group 
with one grade ; the nurse group with two grades ; the 
ornithologist group with one grade ; the physician group 
with three grades ; the psychologist group with two grades ; 
the research laboratory group with four grades ; the statis- 
tician group with one grade; the instructor of the blind 
group with one grade; the librarian group with three 
grades ; the associate in education group with three grades ; 
the normal school instructor group with five grades. The 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 49 

proposed Federal Classification includes actuarial service, 
agricultural promotion and extension service, architectural 
service, arts service, biological science service, chaplain serv- 
ice, community and recreation service, economic and politi- 
cal science service, educational service, engineering service, 
law and examiner service, library service, medical science 
service, nursing service, patent service, physical science serv- 
ice, social science service, statistical service^ and translat- 
ing service. 

Other v^orkers of professional character, in our use of 
the term, such as administrators and supervisors, financial 
and commercial experts, social v^orkers, probation officers, 
civil service examiners, personnel officers, editors and in- 
formation workers, are grouped under such headings as 
''administrative and supervisory service," ''investigational 
and inspectional service," "fiscal and accounting service," 
"specialized business service," "department publications and 
information service," "personnel service." 

The following specifications illustrate those proposed in 
1918 for the Massachusetts service and in 1920 for the 
Washington federal service. 

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS 
Professional and Scientific Service 

LIBRARIAN GROUP 

Grade 1 
Title of Position: 
JUNIOR ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN 

Duties : 

To perform general reference and research work under 
assignment. 

To classify library material, and index and catalogue 
books and publications. 

To perform routine library duties as assigned. 

To be responsible for a department library, including 



50 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

the organization of the Hbrary, classification of material, 
and general reference work for the department. 

To perform such other related, incidental, or emer- 
gency duty as may be assigned. 

Qualifications : 

A certificate of graduation from a library school, or an 
equivalent educational training, and, in addition, not less 
than one year of experience in Hbrary work affording 
appropriate training and experience in the duties to be 
performed. 

Compensation: 

Range of annual salary: $840-$ 1,200. 
Standard salary rates: $900, $960, $1,020, $1,080, 
$1,140, $1,200. 

Grade II 

Title of Position : 
ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN 

Duties : 

To be responsible for a special field of library work 
requiring a thorough technical knowledge of the sub- 
ject. 

To perform independently general library duties re- 
quiring a high degree of skill and training. 

To supervise routine work performed by junior assist- 
ant librarians. 

Qualifications : 

Not less than three years' experience in Grade I, or if 
appointed otherwise than by promotion, practical experi- 
ence in a definite field of library work that would affor i 
appropriate training and experience for the particula - 
duties of the position to be filled. 

Compensation : 

Range of annual salary: $1,200-$ 1,980. 
Standard salary rates: $1,200, $1,320, $1,440, $1,560 
$1,680, $1,800, $1,980, 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 51 

Grade III 

Titles of Positions : 

LIBRARIAN (Director of Field Work). 

LIBRARIAN (Director of Work with Aliens). 

Duties : 

Librarian (Director of Field Work) : 

To supervise library organizers and cataloguers in 
the free public libraries of the Commonwealth. 

To plan and direct educational and publicity work 
for new libraries and to confer with library trustees 
on matters of library poHcy. 

To make surveys of library conditions, and suggest 
programs to trustees for efficient procedure. 

To advise in regard to the organization of new and 
the reorganization of old libraries. 

To advise with trustees and building committees con- 
cerning library buildings and plans. 

To address library clubs and civic and educational 
bodies and to lecture at library schools. 
Librarian (Director of Work with Aliens) : 

To investigate facilities for educational work with 
foreigners in the libraries of the Commonwealth. 

To confer and advise with librarians and trustees 
of libraries in regard to library facilities for aliens. 

To stimulate interest in libraries among foreign 
societies and individuals, and to select, purchase, and 
supervise the distribution of all books in foreign lan- 
guages for the traveling libraries of the Free Public 
Library Commission. 

To address clubs and meetings for the purpose of 
creating interest in the library work with aliens. 

Qualifications : 

Librarian (Director of Field Work) : 

Not less than three years of experience as secre- 
tary, Free Public Library Commission, or at least six 
years of -experience in library organization and ad- 
ministration. 
Librarian (Director of Work with Aliens) : 



52 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Not less than six years of experience in library 
work, or educational work involving some library ex- 
perience, at least four years of which shall have been 
in work with the foreign-speaking alien population. 

Compensation : 

Range of annual salary: $2,5oo-$3,6oo. 
Standard salary rates: $2,580, $2,820, $3,060, $3,300, 
$3,600. 

UNITED STATES: WASHINGTON CIVIL SERVICE 

Services Involving Scientific, Technical, Professional or 
Subsidiary Work 

41. Physical Science Service 

GEOLOGY 

Title of Class: 

AID IN GEOLOGY 

Specifications of Class 
Duties : 

To perform under immediate supervision, minor 
routine work in geology ; and to perform related work as 
required. 

Examples : Preparing fossils and other specimens for 
study; recording and arranging geologic notes; acting as 
rodman in a geologic field party. 

Qualifications : 

Training equivalent to that represented by graduation 
, from high school. 

Principal Lines of Promotion 

To : Junior Geologist. 

Compensation for Class 
Annual: $1,200, $1,320, $1,440, $1,560, $1,680, $1,800. 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 53 

Title of Class : 
JUNIOR GEOLOGIST 

Specifications of Class 
Duties: 

To perform, under immediate supervision, subordinate 
work in geology; and to perform related work as re- 
quired. 

Examples : Carrying on or assisting in simple geologic 
mappings; making and recording geologic observations 
bearing on specific problems ; making preliminary studies 
of mineral prospects; conducting plane-table work; ar- 
ranging, labeling, and studying specimens of rocks, fos- 
sils, and ores ; and in other ways aiding the chief in the 
preparation of reports. 

Qualifications : 

Training equivalent to that represented by graduation 
with a degree from an institution of recognized standing, 
with major work in geology; additional training in one or 
more of the following lines : mineralogy, petrography, geo- 
physics, paleontology, physiography, mineral geography, 
glaciology, stratigraphy, structural geology, economic ge- 
ology of the metalliferous minerals, economic geology of 
the fuels — coal, oil, or gas, or of other nonmetalliferous 
minerals ; ability to read scientific French, or German, or 
an equivalent modern language, and to write clear and 
concise English. 

Principal Lines of Promotion 

From : Aid in Geology. 
To: Assistant Geologist. 

Compensation for Class 
Annual: $1,800, $1,920, $2,040, $2,160. 
Title of Class: 
ASSISTANT GEOLOGIST 

Specifications of Class 
Duties : 

Under specific administrative and technical direction, to 
perform individually, or to direct with assistants, general 



54 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

geologic and related work requiring proven ability ; or to 
have charge of minor subdivisions of such work. 

Examples: Mapping, geologically, definite portions of 
an area; studying and describing less important mineral 
deposits ; tracing and mapping important geologic con- 
tacts or horizons ; preparing reports under immediate 
supervision, but v^ith some manifestation of scientific 
originality in recognizing problems and in devising meth- 
ods for their solution ; having charge of a small field party 
or a subdivision thereof. 

Qualifications : 

Training equivalent to that represented by graduation 
with a degree from an institution of recognized standing, 
with major work in geology; additional training equiva- 
lent to that represented by not less than two years' pro- 
fessional experience in geology or by at least two years' 
graduate work ; ability to read scientific French, or Ger- 
man, or an equivalent foreign language, and to prepare, 
in clear and concise English, manuscripts dealing with 
work in geology. 

Principal Lines of Promotion 

From : Junior Geologist. 
To : Associate Geologist. 

Compensation for Class 

Annual: $2,400, $2,520, $2,640, $2,760, $2,880, $3,000. 

Title of Class: 
ASSOCIATE GEOLOGIST 

Specifications of Class 
Duties : 

Under general administrative and technical direction, 
to perform individually, or to direct with assistants, spe- 
cialized work in geology requiring experience and proven 
ability; to exercise independent judgment and to assume 
responsibilities in the solution of geologic problems and in 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 55 

the preparation of reports ; to be in responsible charge of 
an intermediate subdivision in an organization doing geo- 
logic work ; and to perform related work as required. 

Examples : Having charge of a geologic field party 
or small group of parties, or of a specific geologic inves- 
tigation, or of an intermediate subdivision in an organi- 
zation dealing with geologic prob'ems; preparing reports 
upon a geologic field, or upon a particular mineral re- 
source or group of resources. 

Qualifications : 

Training equivalent to that represented by graduation 
with a degree from an institution of recognized standing, 
with major work in geolo<^v ; additional training equiva- 
lent to that represented either (i) by not less than five 
years' professional experience in work of the grade re- 
quired of an Assistant Geologist, or (2) by not less 
than three years' graduate work ; ability to read scientific 
French or German, or an equivalent foreign language, 
and to prepare, in clear and concise English, manu 
scripts embodying the results of investigations in geology. 

Principal Lines of Promotion 

From: Assistant Geologist. 
To: Geologist. 

Compensation for Class 

Annual : $3,240, $3,360, $3480, $3,600, $3,720, $3,840. 

Title of Class : 
GEOLOGIST 

Specifications of Class 
Duties : 

To perform, under general administrative direction, one 
or more of the following functions: (i) To carry on 
individually or with associates or through subordinates, 
highly specialized investigations in geology; (2) to plan 
and execute major lines of work in geology; (3) to act 
in a consulting or advisory capacity on problems in 



56 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

geology; or (4) to have responsible charge of, and to 
initiate or execute policies for, a major administrative 
unit dealing with geologic problems ; and to perform other 
related v^^ork. 

Qualifications : 

Training equivalent to that represented by graduation 
with a degree from an institution of recognized standing, 
with major work in geology; additional training equiva- 
lent to that represented either (i) by not less than eight 
years' professional experience or (2) by not less than 
three years' graduate work in geology and at least five 
years' professional experience, of which experience, in 
either case, not less than three years shall have been in 
work of the grade required of an Associate Geologist; 
proven ability to direct or to perform specialized work in 
geology; ability to read scientific French or German, or 
an equivalent foreign language, and to prepare, in clear 
and concise English, manuscripts embodying the results 
of investigations in geology. 

Principal Lines of Promotion 

From: Associate Geologist. 

To: Senior Geologist; Director, Geological Survey. 

Compensation for Class 

Annual: $4,140, $4,320. $4,500, $4,680, $4,860, $5,040. 

Title of Class: 
SENIOR GEOLOGIST 

Specifications of Class 
Duties : 

To perform one or more of the following functions: 
(i) To perform or direct the most difficult and compre- 
hensive advanced work in geology; (2) to act as con- 
sulting specialist in the field of geology; or (3) to dis- 
charge major administrative duties involving the deter- 
mination of broad lines of policy under the limitations 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 57 

imposed by existing laws, regulations, or other fixed re- 
quirements ; and to perform other related work. 

Qualifications : 

Training equavalent to that represented by graduation 
with a degree from an institution of recognized standing, 
with major work in geology; additional training equiva- 
lent to that represented either ( i ) by at least twelve years' 
professional experience, or (2) by not less than three 
years' graduate work in geology and at least eight years' 
professional experience, of which experience, in either 
case, not less than four years shall have been in work 
of the grade required of a Geologist; large capacity and 
proven ability to perform and direct advanced work in 
geology. 

Principal Lines of Promotion 

From: Geologist. 

To: Director, Geological Survey. 

Compensation for Class 
* * * 

(Recommended by Civil Service Commission to Con- 
gress.) 

Title of Class: 

DIRECTOR, GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

Specifications of Class 
Duties : 

Under the general direction of the Secretary of the 
Interior, to have administrative charge of all the activi- 
ties of the Geological Survey; to be responsible for its 
expenditures and the efficiency of its employees; to in- 
itiate and direct research- in pure and applied geology and 
related subjects ; to consider and take action on questions 
concerning geology referred by the Secretary; and to 
perform other related work. 

Qualifications : 

Training equivalent to that represented by graduation 
with a degree from an institution of recognized standing, 



58 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

with major work in science, and by three years* graduate 
work in geology; extended experience in the application 
of scientific methods of research to the solution of 
problems in geology and related subjects ; not less than 
five years' responsible administrative experience; ability 
to determine productive lines of research relating to ge- 
ology, and to organize and direct staffs of investigators 
and regulatory workers. 

Principal Lines of Promotion 

From: Senior Geologist; Geologist. 

Compensation for Class 
* * * 

(Recommended by Civil Service Commission to Con- 
gress.) 

The shrinkage of the dollar to a purchasing value of 
about forty-three cents at this writing has borne heavily 
upon professional workers, who are commonly in receipt 
of fixed salaries or relatively fixed incomes, barely adequate 
even with a normal dollar ; and who have seen them cut in 
half by the present cost of living. The acuteness of the 
situation, combined with the enlarged demand for profes- 
sional workers at more ample salaries in industry and com- 
merce, has been forcing salaries upward in the independent 
professions, although they have not yet regained their 
former value nor caught up with present price levels. It is 
important not to be dazzled by the mere number of dol- 
lars in new salary scales, but to ask how far they are 
merely just restorations of old salaries; how far, genuine 
increases. Perhaps the most valuable results of the wide- 
spread salary agitation lie in the reconsideration which it 
has brought about of the principles which should underlie 
the building of professional salary schedules, and the deep- 
ened consciousness among professional workers that they 
should be fully informed of these principles and even have 
a share in determining them. If the great college and uni- 
versity "drives" for endowment bring about published sal- 
ary schedules and published statements of the grounds and 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 59 

methods of promotion, they will do more for the profes- 
sional spirit and morale of college teachers than even the 
raising of wretchedly inadequate salaries to something more 
nearly approaching a professional ''wage of decency and 
comfort." The salary movement, in fact, is forcing in 
every profession the formal or informal drafting of speci- 
fications of duties and qualifications, lines of promotion, 
and salary ranges ; and there are new obligations on the side 
of the worker as well as on the side of the employer and 
prospects of better mutual understanding and good will. 

Price levels are still so unsettled, and salaries are still so 
actively in process of readjustment that it is hardly safe 
to quote figures which are likely to become obsolete by the 
time they are in print. The experience of the past six 
years has shown the necessity of periodic revisions of sal- 
ary schedules, since, particularly in teaching and in gov- 
ernment service, salaries once determined tend to persist 
without change for ten or even twenty years. Index num- 
bers of the cost of living afford a convenient scale by means 
of which to make needed readjustments. The rate for suit- 
able room and board furnishes a rough practical measure. 
The American Association for Labor Legislation has 
adopted an elastic system, based on current index numbers, 
at the suggestion of Professor Irving Fisher.^ 

Since the close of the war, a number oi professional or- 
ganizations, in addition to the colleges, have been studying 
existing salaries and suggesting or adopting higher and more 
standardized schedules. Among them may be mentioned the 
Congressional Joint Commission on Reclassification of Sal- 
aries, which has studied current rates of compensation in 
parallel non-governmental employments, and which asked 
the Bureau of Labor Statistics to prepare minimum "health 
and decency" budgets for a single man, a single woman, and 
a family of five in clerical service in Washington ;- the Na- 
tional Education Association;^ and chambers of Commerce 

^Shifting Wages with the Cost of Living. Red Cross Magazine. 
January, 1920. 

* Report (March, 1920) and Monthly Labor Review. December, 
1919, January, 1920. 

'E. S. Evenden. Teachers' Salaries and Salary Schedules, Oc- 
tober, 1919. 



6o WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

through the American City Bureau ; ^ the American Asso- 
ciation for Organizing Family Social Work ; ^ the Minne- 
apolis Council of Social Agencies ; ^ the Engineering Coun- 
cil ; * the Young Women's ^ Christian Associations ; the 
Bureau of Vocational Information.^ It is interesting to 
compare the minimum budget for a woman government 
clerk, estimated at $1,151.15 on the basis of prices pre- 
vailing in Washington in September, 1919, with the mini- 
mum budgets for teachers at the levels of "existence," 
^'thrift," and ''culture" or improvement, prepared by the 
Massachusetts Teachers' Federation and standing at $1,382, 
$1,612, and $1,812 respectively.'^ The case-work study rec- 
ommends a minimum salary of $1,200 for a case-worker 
with one year of professional training. Dr. Evenden recom- 
mends a minimum of $1,200 with six annual increments of 
$100 for a teacher with two years of normal training; of 
$1,400 for a teacher with an A. B. degree; $1,600 for a 
teacher with an A. M. degree ; and $2,000 for a teacher with 
a Ph.D. degree, the last three with ten annual increments 
of $100, making the maximum salaries $1,800, $2,400, 
$2,600, and $3,000 respectively. The American Federation 
of Teachers recommends a minimum teachers* salary of 
$2,000. Leland Stanford Junior University established the 
following salary schedule in November, 1919, representing 
advances of from 18 to 50 per cent: Instructors, $1,800- 
$2,400; assistant professors, $2,5oo-$3,ooo ; associate pro- 
fessors, $3,25o-$4,ooo ; professors, $4,5oo-$7,5oo. 

On the basis of these and other figures, tentative and 
shifting as they are, it is perhaps not misleading to suggest 
the following tentative salary schedule, to be used as a basis 

^ Know and Help Your Schools (1920). 

'Expenditures and Salaries of Case Workers. The Family. 
March. April, 1920.^ 

'Positions in Social Work in Minneapolis. 1920. 

* Report of Committee on Classification and Compensation of En- 
gineers. December, 1919. 

^Report on Salaries and Living of Employed OMcers. April, 
1920. (Unpublished.) Vocations for Business and Professional 
Women. May, 1919. 

'^Bulletins on W^omen in Chemistry, Statistics, Law, and Depart- 
ment Stores (1920-1921). 

''School Life. U. S. Bureau of Education. January 15, 1920. 



SPECIFICATIONS FOR WORKERS 6i 

of comparison, for the various grades of professional 
worker given on page 34. 

1. Learner in service $i,200-$i,400 

2. Service worker under supervision. . . . $i,5oo-$2,ooo 

3. Supervisor or instructor $2,ooo-$3,ooo 

4. Non-administrative technical expert. . $2,5oo-$3,500 up 

5. Administrative expert $3,500 up 



CHAPTER IV 

THE "learned professions" : MEDICINE, LAW, THE MINISTRY 

Medicine, law, and divinity, the three "learned profes- 
sions," come to us from the medieval universities, which 
were essentially professional schools — in their earlier form 
guilds of teachers and scholars. They have always pre- 
served their strong group spirit and emphasis upon special 
training of an intelTectuar character, and in these respects 
have served as models for the newer professions. 

Their definite organization and strong sense of prestige 
have tended to make the learned professions conservative 
and undemocratic, but at the same time have given them un- 
usual capacity for effective group action, strikingly illus- 
trated during the war, when there was a country-wide 
registration of doctors to determine resources for both over- 
seas and home service and a mobilization of lawyers for 
service on draft-boards, in connection with war-risk insur- 
ance, and for other legal work. The medical and legal pro- 
fessions have undoubtedly gained a new sense of responsibil- 
ity for government and community programs, a new power 
of cooperating v^ith other professions, a new realization of 
the distribution and services of their members.^ The great 
campaign for public health, well begun before the war, has 
received an incalculable impetus. The modern idea of 
"group medicine" ^ as over against the old idea of "private 
practice" has notably advanced. There are even glimmer- 
ings of "group law." 

In all these enterprises and tendencies professional women 

^ It is estimated that before the war there was one doctor to about 
850 persons in the United States ; one to about 2,000 persons in 
Europe. The ratio of lawyers was one to about 700 persons as 
against one to t,ioo in Great Britain. 

^ See Richard C. Cabot. Training and Rewards of the Physician 
(1918), Chapter 11. 

62 



MEDICINE, LAW, THE MINISTRY 63 

have shared and are sharing, although they still have to 
meet certain barriers to admission to professional schools 
and professional associations. In spite of the shortage of 
physicians, women doctors were employed by the govern- 
ment during the war only as ''contract surgeons." More 
difficult to overcome than these disappearing formal limi- 
tations, has been the widespread feeling among physicians 
and lawyers that theirs are men's professions, and that 
women, no matter how well trained, are outsiders and in- 
truders. Some of the leaders in each profession have not 
held this view; the war has done something to shake it; 
socialized medicine and law and the new political status 
of women are all helping to do away with it. 

Nevertheless, this attitude on the part of professional 
men has played its part in deterring women from entering 
medicine and law. The length and cost of training and 
the difficulty of establishing an independent practice have 
been other influences. In the early days of the movements 
for higher education and equal suffrage, pioneer women 
of a high type studied both law and medicine. The first 
woman doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell, received her medical 
.iegree as long ago as 1848. But with the realization of the 
practical obstacles and with the development of other fields 
of work for women, notably social service, there was a 
falling off in the relative numbers of women doctors and 
lawyers. By 1910, although the number of medical schools 
open to women had increased, the relative number of women 
students had diminished. In the ministry, the facts that only 
certain Protestant churches ordain women, and that there 
is little public knowledge of it as a profession for women, 
have limited numbers. Once in the ministry, however, 
women have probably had to face less opposition than in the 
other learned professions. 

The past ten years have been an era of marked advance 
in American medicine. The Carnegie Report on Medical 
Education in 1910 and the educational activities of the Amer- 
ican Medical Association have enormously improved the 
standards of medical schools ; the Rockefeller endowments 
have fostered medical research; federal and state govern- 



64 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

merits and great private organizations have developed large 
public health programs ; universities have established schools 
and courses in public health. Since 1916 the American 
Medical Association has required a full high-school course 
and at least two years of college work including pre-profes- 
sional courses in science of all medical schools receiving its 
approval. Eighty-one out of a total of ninety schools meet 
this requirement, forty of them reaching it within the past 
four years. Sixty schools now admit women, including 
practically all the leading institutions. The schools of Johns 
Hopkins University and Cornell University have always 
admitted them. The Harvard Medical School, the College 
of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, and 
the medical school of Washington University in Saint Louis 
were* opened to them in 1918. A number of the best 
schools now require a year of interneship of all graduates. 
This is an essential part of modern medical education from 
which women have in the past too frequently been shut out. 
The changes in the spirit, objects, and standards of medi- 
cine within the decade are drawing into the profession a 
larger number of women, and there is evidence of a rap- 
idly increasing interest in it on the part of the present gen- 
eration of women college students. The 1910 census re- 
ported 9,015 women doctors, 6 per cent of the membership 
of the profession. The Census of Women Physicians com- 
piled in 1918 by the Medical Women's National Associa- 
tion gives the names of some six thousand doctors by 
states, showing the medical schools of which they are gradu- 
ates, their membership in medical societies, and whether 
they are in active practice. It likewise contains lists of 
medical women who are laboratory experts, roentgenolo- 
srists, and anaesthetists. The Biennial Survey of Education 
for 1917-1918 of the U. S. Bureau of Education shows for 
the latter year a total of 13,630 medical students, both men 
and women. Of these, 93.3 per cent were enrolled in the 
higher standard medical schools. In 1904 out of a total 
of 28,142 medical students, only 6.2 per cent were so en- 
rolled. The figures speak volumes for the improvement 
in the quality of the medical profession and the disappear- 
ance of the appalling oversupply of poorly equipped medi- 



MEDICINE, LAW, THE MINISTRY 65 

cal practitioners. There should be organized efforts to 
increase medical scholarships and fellowships for women 
college students of high capacity and interest in medicine 
as a career. 

The medical profession to-day offers widening and in- 
creasingly varied opportunities for women, especially in con- 
nection with promotion of the health of children, of girls 
and women in industry, of the community, and of the home. 
There is crying need of them in work with deHnquents. 
The International Conference of Women Physicians held 
in New York in the autumn of 1919 through the efforts of 
the National Board of Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tions, focused attention upon the part to be played by medi- 
cal women in the great movements for preventive medi- 
cine, public health, social and mental hygiene. The con- 
ference drew up a comprehensive program for social health.^ 
While there is undoubtedly a shrinkage in the opportunities 
for the older type of "private practice," the ramifications 
of health activity and health interest are creating all sorts 
of new demands for physicians of modern training and 
modern spirit.^ 

Medical women find salaried positions in connection with 
(i) educational institutions; (2) hospitals and other insti- 
tutions for dependents and delinquents; (3) public depart- 
ments or boards; (4) industrial and commercial firms; (5) 
health and social organizations; (6) research and diagnostic 
laboratories ; (7) health publicity. In these fields their work 
may be administrative or supervisory, instructional, in- 
spectional, or laboratory ; and they may also engage in a 
certain amount of actual treatment of cases. 

Colleges and schools have long had resident physicians, 
who have sometimes been also professors of physiology 
and hygiene. With the growth of more constructive ideas 
of health education, women physicians are directors of col* 
lege departments of health or in charge of departments of 
physical education, sometimes taking special training in or- 
der to direct this work. At least one doctor in such de- 

^ Survey. November 15, 1919. 

' See Richard C. Cabot. Training and Rewards of the Physician 
(1918). 



66 WOMEN PROFESSION-.. L WORKERS 

partments should be a specialist in mental hygiene. With 
one or two brilliant exceptions, women instructors in medi- 
cal schools have been rare, except in schools exclusively for 
women. But they are slowly increasing. A distinguished 
woman specialist in industrial diseases has recently re 
ceived an appointment to the -faculty of the Harvard Medi- 
cal School. Women not infrequently serve as school doc- 
tors or medical inspectors in city school systems. 

Other types of institution, hospitals and mental hospitals, 
prisons, reformatories, schools for defectives, frequently 
have resident physicians. In some states, every public men- 
tal hospital must have a woman on its medical staff. Insti- 
tutions for delinquents are coming to recognize the impor- 
tance of psychiatrists and psychologists. A few women 
physicians are superintendents of institutions for women 
and children. In state or city departments of health medi- 
cal women have served for the most part as assistants, espe- 
cially in laboratory positions. Many are institutional bac- 
teriologists and pathologists. But a woman doctor has been 
health officer of Portland, Oregon, and another, a college 
graduate, holds that position in Poughkeepsie, New York. 
Women doctors are being appointed directors of the bu- 
reaus of child hygiene which are being created in states 
and cities throughout the country. Dr. S. Josephine Baker 
has long held this important position in New York City. 
They have played a leading part in the admirable studies 
of infant mortality and child health made by the federal 
Children's Bureau, and have been employed in a few other 
federal services. 

Industrial and commercial medicine are new fields ; but 
they are developing with great rapidity, and p^issing from 
their earlier stages of routine examination and treatment to 
constructive health activities for employees. Women phy- 
sicians have large opportunities for health education with 
factory women, saleswomen in department stores, clerks in 
great insurance and financial corporations, operators in tele- 
phone companies. The most effective relations among doc- 
tors, nurses, and social workers in these fields are still to 
be worked out. Some of the insurance companies employ 
women medical examiners for women applicants; and at 



MEDICINE, LAW, THE MINISTRY 67 

least one has gone into extensive health work for its poHcy 
holders throughout the country. 

Health and social organizations of many kinds are em- 
ploying women doctors. Anti-tuberculosis work has long 
been a meeting-ground of doctor, nurse, and social worker. 
The new fields of social hygiene and mental hygiene call 
imperatively for the intimate cooperation of doctors, nurses, 
teachers, social workers, civic workers, industrial relations 
workers. The American Social Hygiene Association, the 
Bureau of Social Hygiene of the Rockefeller Foundation, 
the Social Morality Committee of the War Work Council 
of the Young Women's Christian Associations, all con- 
tributed to the carrying out of the government's great pro- 
gram for cheeking venereal disease in the army and launch- 
ing a country-wide campaign of sex education and progres- 
sive sex legislation. These and other organizations are 
continuing the movement in cooperation with the United 
States Public Health Service and state and city health au- 
thorities. Even more im.portant, as more comprehensive, 
is the mental hygiene movement, directed by the National 
Committee for Mental Hygiene and its cooperating state 
societies. W^omen psychiatrists are needed in many fields, 
especially in protective and corrective work with women 
and girls, in education, and in industry. Hitherto their 
opportunities have been chiefly in connection with men- 
tal hospitals. But more general recognition of the 
prevalence of unstable and psychopathic persons in the com- 
munity and of the value of preventive work with children 
and young people is greatly enlarging these opportunities 
and calling for a new type of training and experience. Some 
women psychiatrists have already established themselves as 
independent practitioners and consultants. 

In laboratories, public or private, women doctors are 
scientific workers rather than exclusively medical workers. 
Many laboratory workers are not doctors ; and there is con- 
siderable difference of opinion as to the necessity or even 
desirability of a medical degree. It is probably the part 
of wisdom at present for a laboratory worker to acquire 
this degree to insure the respect and cooperation of the doc- 
tors with whom she works, just as it is for a psychologist. 



68 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

The assistant director of the great research laboratories 
of the New York City Department of Health is a woman. 

The field of health publicity and popular education in 
health matters has been greatly enlarged through the va- 
rious health campaigns of the war. Women doctors have 
been employed as field lecturers ; they have prepared health 
literature for popular distribution ; they have organized ex- 
tension courses in health ; they have directed "health drives." 
This work is usually supplementary to other employment 
or of a temporary character. It calls for women of ex- 
perience and reputation. 

Women have studied and practiced dentistry for many 
years ; but their number has not increased. The 1910 cen- 
sus reported 1,254 women dentists, three per cent of the 
profession. In 1916 only twenty-one women were gradu- 
ated from forty-eight schools of dentistry. There are new 
tendencies in dentistry, however, which may lead to a 
greater interest in it on the part of women. Recognition 
of the primary importance to health of oral medicine and 
surgery is requiring of the dentist medical as well as den- 
tal training. The establishment of dental clinics and dental 
work in schools indicates the place which preventive work 
in this field is assuming. Dental education is following 
medical education in raising standards. 

Medicine to-day should attract young women of the high- 
est type of intelligence, character, and general education. 
The minimum requirement of two years of college work is 
not enough for eventual leadership and for the cultural sat- 
isfactions and contacts needed in a life of strenuous pro- 
fessional endeavor. The committee on pre-medical college 
work of the Council on Medical Education in its report 
of February, 1918, calls for at least sixty semester hours 
of college study. Courses required are chemistry, physics, 
biology, English composition and literature, and twelve 
hours of non-science subjects; courses strongly urged are 
French or German, psychology, advanced mathematics, ad- 
vanced botany or zoology, and additional courses in chem- 
istry; courses suggested include economics, sociology, his- 
tory, political science, logic, mathematics, Latin, Greek, and 
drawing. With the new social and psychological responsi- 



MEDICINE, LAW, THE MINISTRY 69 

bilities of medicine, courses in psychology, economics, and 
sociology, and attention to the arts and to the art of living 
are essential. 

Women students should choose a medical school requir- 
ing a year of interneship, and should look forward to some 
graduate work. If they prefer a school for women only, 
such as the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, 
they should plan for a year soon after at a university medi- 
cal school. Women doctors going into public health work 
are also ,takin_g graduate courses leading to the degree of 
doctor of public health. Medical training is long and ex- 
acting, and women entering upon it should have robust 
health, nervous stability, tenacity of purpose, and natural 
sagacity with regard to human beings and human affairs. 
For such women medicine is a profession of assured stand- 
ing and usefulness, and it is rich in intellectual and human 
satisfactions.^ 

Women doctors are found increasingly in salaried po- 
sitions ; but there are genuine social opportunities and valu- 
able supplementary training in general practice, especially 
in the small town or country neighborhood or the crowded 
quarters of a great city. A woman beginning independent 
practice will do well to have enough money to carry herself 
for a year while she is establishing herself in a community. 
Dr. Cabot says: ''Few doctors have ever grown rich from 
their medical fees, and if I read the signs of the times 
rightly the number of doctors with incomes above $5,000 
a year is going to be smaller in the future than in the 
past."^ ^ 

Vocations for Business and Professional Women, says 
that medical women as a group are earning more than 
women in other professions. It gives the following salary 
ranges: doctors in educational institutions, about $1,800 and 
maintenance; in state institutions, from $1,600 to $2,600 and 
maintenance; in social agencies beginning at $1,800 or 
$2,000; in research laboratories from $900 to $3,000. Eight 
doctors and one dentist filling our schedules report salaries 
ranging from $1,200 and maintenance (easily equivalent to 

* Cabot. Training and Rewards of the Physician. Chapter XII, 
pp. 40-51, 133-136. 



70 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

$500 in these days) to $5,100, with a median salary of 
$2,600. Two of these women are professors and deans, 
one in a medical school, one in a school of oral hygiene ; one 
is instructor in psychiatry in a university medical school ; 
one is a school medical inspector ; two are resident phy- 
sicians in mental hospitals ; one is superintendent of a re- 
formatory for women; one is director of a city bureau of 
child hygiene-; two are special investigators in the federal 
Department of Labor in child hygiene and in industrial 
poisoning; one is physician and mental examiner in a girls' 
protective association. Five of these women are college 
graduates ; two are doctors of public health as well as doc- 
tors of medicine. Among them are several of the best 
known women doctors in the country. 

Their comments are worth noting. The investigator of 
industrial diseases, an authority in her field, says : *T think 
that a woman with an interest in new problems and in the 
protection of working people would find work such as this 
very satisfying. SlTe would need a medical degree . . . and 
some experience among . . . working people, organized and 
unorganized. . , . Each industry I take up must be mas- 
tered first in all essential details. All foreign literature on 
the subject must be studied." 

The school medical inspector says : "After being a teacher 
in common schools, study medicine, after which take the 
course leading to Doctor of Public Health." 

The physician with a girls' protective association says : 
*Tt is desirable to have actual clinical experience with de- 
linquents rather than to depend on abstract laboratory train- 
ing." 

A pathologist in a state mental hospital says : "There are 
good openings for women physicians in pathological work, 
and it is a specialty for which they are well fitted. . . . 
When there is a chance for advancement, men, even young 
ones, are always chosen, as the plan is to fit the most promis- 
ing ones for the more responsible positions in the state hos- 
pital service. . . . Men take a position as pathologist only 
as a beginning. . . . The more mature men are given the 
position of clinical director and pathologist, which demands 
more equipment, carries more authority, and naturally a 



MEDICINE, LAW, THE MINISTRY 71 

higher salary. Women are not ehgible for clinical director." 

Law is a profession much less commonly entered by 
women than is medicine. Its standards and methods of 
training are far less well established, and it has been less 
affected by the modern social spirit. It may be said to be 
the most conservative of all professions. Nevertheless, 
there are signs that it is entering upon a period of re- 
organization, standardization, and socialization such as that 
through which medicine has already passed. It suffers from 
being dominated by the spirit of precedent rather than by 
the spirit of scientific inquiry and through its intimate re- 
lations with the details of politics and business. But it 
has always commanded the interest and services of men 
of the highest ability; and its professional contribution to 
public and social welfare, the securing of justice in human 
relations, has never been so imperatively needed. 

Law is an overcrowded profession, as medicine was be- 
fore the standards of medical education were raised. An 
authority on legal education has observed that it is to be 
compared not so much with medicine alone as with the 
group containing medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and mid- 
wifery. The 1910 census found 1,343 women lawyers; 
and the dean of a law school estimates that there are now 
about fifteen hundred women members of the bar. The 
Bureau of Education gives a total of 687 women law stu- 
dents and 103 women graduates in 1916, distributed among 
124 law schools. Of these schools, 102 are connected with 
universities ; 22 are independent schools, including full-time 
day schools, evening schools, and mixed schools, giving 
both day and late afternoon or evening instruction. The 
average standard course is three years in length. The ma- 
jority of women students are still to be found in evening 
or mixed schools. Of the seven law schools of highest 
entrance requirements, Harvard, Columbia, and Western 
Reserve do not as yet admit women. The Yale Law School 
was opened in 1919-1920 for the first time to women with 
a satisfactory college degree. The LTniversity of Penn- 
sylvania Law School, also on a full graduate basis, has 
been open to them since 1898; but few women have taken 



72 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

the course. The dean of a middle-western university law 
school writes: "The attendance of women in the law 
school of this university has had a history rather hard 
to account for. During the eighties and early nineties of 
the last century there were usually from twenty to thirty 
women in the law school. Then the number began to de- 
cline, and there have been years during the last decade when 
there were no women students here. Recently the number 
has begun to increase slightly. . . . There are at present six 
women in the law school, and the number of inquiries from 
prospective women students has distinctly increased during 
the last year or so. . . . There were but two women gradu- 
ates from the period 1907 to 1912. We have had three 
or four women during the sixteen years of my connection 
with this law school who have made real successes at the 
bar, and two' of them I would count among the ablest stu- 
dents we have had during that period." 

According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advance- 
ment of Teaching ^ the number of men students in law 
schools fell off in 1918 about seventy per cent on account of 
the war. The number of women, on the contrary, increased 
over twenty-six per cent, from five to seventeen per cent of 
the total attendance. This increase, however, was 92.4 per 
cent in the evening schools and 31.5 in the mixed schools, 
while there was a slight decrease in the attendance of 
women upon the full-time day schools. Such evidence in- 
dicates that there is danger of a supply of imperfectly 
trained women lawyers, and that one of the important tasks 
immediately ahead is the active encouragement of women 
students in full-time law schools of the highest standards. 
Fellowships might well be established to this end. 

The American Bar Association, the Association of Amer- 
ican Law Schools, the United States Bureau of Education, 
and the division of Legal education of the Carnegie Foun- 
dation are all actively v^^orking for the raising of the stand- 
ards of legal education and state requirements for admission 
to the bar. These last vary widely.^ The recommendations 

^Thirteenth Annual Report (1918). 

"^ Women in the Law (1921), Bulletin 3, Bureau of Vocational 
Information. 



MEDICINE, LAW, THE MINISTRY 



/o 



made to the American Bar Association in 1916 call for pre- 
liminary education equal to that required for admission to the 
state university or the standard college of the state ; official 
registration as a law student, and four years of legal study, 
including three years in an approved law school and one 
full year as a registered clerk in a law office. Many of 
the better university law schools already require two years 
of college work with pre-professional courses, and at least 
three require college graduation. The long awaited Carne- 
gie report on legal education will probably lead to as great 
an outcry and accomplish as much good as the famous re- 
port on medical education in 1910. 

In the meantime there is a strong movement within the 
profession for the simplification of American legal proce- 
dure, which is overburdened with precedent and detail, and 
for a clearer recognition of its public and social obliga- 
tions, a greater emphasis upon its responsibilities as the 
guardian of essential human rights and the furtherer of 
justice to every economic and social group. The law needs 
imperatively men and women who are not merely class- 
minded and property-minded, but who bring a trained and 
active intelligence to bear upon the difficult problems of 
justice in modern human relations.^ 

These newer developments in the legal profession 
strengthen its appeal to women. Their own new political 
status tends to widen their legal opportunities, and will 
enable them to take a more active part both in the adminis- 
tration of justice and in the promotion of sound legisla- 
tion. Many women lawyers and other leaders in the long 
fight for the franchise have gained an extensive legal and 
political education which they are putting at the disposal 
not only of inexperienced women voters but of all "for- 
gotten" and handicapped groups in the population — for- 
eigners, small tenants and debtors, unskilled and low-paid 
wage earners, the ignorant and helpless and exploited every- 
where. Their relative detachment from vested interests and 
large property transactions leaves women free to devote 
themselves to the human and preventive side of law, to 

^The Cleveland Foundation is conducting in 1920-1921 a survey 
of the administration of justice in that city. 



74 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

the cause of "Justice and the Poor/' so impressively set 
forth in the recent Carnegie bulletin of that name/ which 
every v^oman thinking of law as a profession should read 
and ponder. Women lawyers are of course especially needed 
in matters concerning the protection and welfare of women 
and of children ; they are needed in legal aid societies until 
a more enlightened administration of law renders such socie- 
ties unnecessary ; they seem admirably fitted to fill the post 
of "public defender" now so widely advocated. They are 
also greatly needed as judges in juvenile courts, municipal 
courts, courts of domestic relations, small claims courts, and 
so on. They should have a place on industrial accident 
boards and boards of arbitration and conciliation. Many 
women lawyers to-day are using their training indirectly in 
different social services, as probation officers, parole officers, 
child-placing agents, industrial investigators, executives of 
social organizations. Law is behind medicine in developing 
the conceptions of prevention and research; but there are 
likely to be increasing opportunities for women of high legal 
scholarship and technical equipment in the research field. 
Dean Roscoe Pound has advocated the establishment of a 
Research Bureau of Justice. The American Association for 
International Conciliation, the Carnegie Endowment for In- 
ternational Peace, the American Association for Labor Leg- 
islation, and other associations carry on legal investigations. 
With the establishment of the League of Nations the study 
of national and international law will undoubtedly widen in 
scope. Just at present there is almost an obligation upon 
women lawyers of sound liberal education, thorough profes- 
sional training, strong character, and indisputable standing 
in the community to become candidates for judicial and other 
public offices. New York has a woman assistant district 
attorney and a woman city magistrate appointed by the 
mayor and presiding over the women's court and the court 
of domestic relations. A woman is judge of the juvenile 
court in Washington, D. C. Another has been elected judge 
in the court of common pleas in Ohio. A woman has been 
federal probate attorney for Indians in Oklahoma. A Cal- 

* Reginald H. Smith. Carnegie Foundation Bulletin Number Thir- 
teen (1919). 



MEDICINE, LAW, THE MINISTRY 75 

ifornia woman, a university graduate, has just been ap- 
pointed an assistant attorney-general of the United States, 
the first woman to hold such a position. 

The subdivisions of the law are many and technical.^ The 
main distinctions are those between office practice and court 
practice^ civil and criminal law, and independent and sal- 
aried practitioners. There are some very successful women 
lawyers in independent practice; but the majority are in 
salaried positions with law firms or in the legal departments 
of insurance companies, railroads, title and trust or real 
estate companies, commercial or industrial firms, social or- 
ganizations, or the government services. Few women law- 
yers have engaged in extensive court practice, but there is 
no reason why they should not do so, if properly qualified. 

Women who wish to enter the law should consider it im- 
perative to secure preparation in a law school of high stand- 
ing, in which the training includes study by the case-method,^ 
practice in moot-courts, and emphasis upon modern legal 
and social problems as well as upon technical legal pro- 
cedure. This training should be based upon a comprehen- 
sive liberal education including some Latin, and courses 
in economics and sociology, history, politics and govern- 
ment, philosophy, biology, and psychology, with attention to 
its abnormal aspects. They should have robust health, clear 
and vigorous minds, the ability to weigh evidence impar- 
tially, to handle detail, and to- reach practical decisions with- 
out losing idealism; above all, an inexhaustible interest in 
the workings of the body poHtic and the workings of the 
popular mind. In a profession that is still practically a 
pioneer field for women, employment depends largely upon 
individual initiative. But the law school attended, lawyers' 
associations, advertisement in law journals, registration with 
bureaus of occupations, may all be of assistance. 

The eighteen lawyers filling our schedules in 1918-1919 
represent all parts of the country from New England to the 
Pacific coast. Nine are in independent practice ; eight are in 

*F. J. Allen. The Laiv as a Vocation. Second Edition (1919). 

'See Women in the Law (1921). Dr. Josef Redlich. The Com- 
mon Law and the Case Method. Carnegie Foundation Bulletin 
Number Eight (1914). 



^^ WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

salaried positions; one is dean of her own law school. Of 
the independent group, one is in partnership with her father, 
another with her husband ; one is also editor of a law jour- 
nal ; one has in addition a yearly retaining fee from a cor- 
poration. The only lawyer giving her earnings reports an 
income of $5,000 during the past year. In the salaried group, 
the incomes are not high, ranging from $660 for an attorney 
for a legal aid society to $2,150 for an elected justice of the 
peace. The median is between $1,800 and $2,000. One 
woman reports salaries of which she knows as $2,500 for a 
woman lawyer in government service, $3,000 for a woman 
in the legal department of a business organization, and 
$3,600 for a woman judge. Of the salaried lawyers, five 
are in direct legal work and three are using their training 
indirectly. These include a woman in charge of a depart- 
ment of law and thrift in a women's educational and philan- 
thropic organization in the east, a woman in the legal de- 
partment of a railroad, a law clerk in the legal department 
of a large western city, an attorney for a middle-western 
legal aid society, a Pacific Coast justice of the peace, an 
assistant to the secretary of the Federal Land Bank in a 
southern district, an executive secretary of a city suffrage 
organization, an organizing secretary for the National Board 
of Young Women's Christian Association. Six of the 
women lawyers reporting are college graduates and gradu- 
ates of university law schools, one of them from a four- 
year course open only to those with a college degree. One 
has the degree of doctor of jurisprudence. Four others 
are graduates of two-year law schools attached to univer- 
sities, but are without college degrees. One is a graduate 
of an independent law school. The others give no infor- 
mation. 

Some comments follow. A young college woman says: 
*'In the legal profession, men and women alike a;;e met at 
the outset with the same problem of salaries insufficient for 
living expenses. . . . After a year or two of experience it 
is possible for men to get $20 a week, or possibly more. 
Women meet with discrimination here, the larger firms being 
almost unanimously opposed to employing them; and it is 
with these larger firms that the large salaries are to be ob- 



MEDICINE, LAW, THE MINISTRY yy 

tained. There is one thing to be said, however, a firm whicli 
has once had a woman in its employ is ever thereafter open 
to women. . . . The obtaining of the vote in New York 
state has made the greatest difference. Hitherto the Dis- 
trict Attorney's Office, the best school for criminal practice 
— and incidentally one which offers a living wage — has been 
closed to women. One of the first acts of the present admin- 
istration was to appoint a woman assistant district attorney. 
There is undoubtedly a similar reaction going on in the pri- 
vate offices, as they cannot fail to be affected by the change 
in the political status of women." 

A member of a successful firm of women lawyers in a 
metropolitan eastern city says : ''Get a business training. 
Law is not all library work and appealing to juries. Then 
be willing to do any kind of drudge work at first. Familiar- 
ity with downtown office conditions is absolutely essential 
and takes time to acquire. Get all 'Portia' notions out of 
your head. . . . The way to secure positions is simply to 
apply. A great many law offices will take inexperienced 
girls at a nominal salary, but the girl must have outside 
financial help or some additional employment like tutoring 
or secretarial work. She can sometimes get part-time law 
work.'* 

The only woman lawyer in an eastern rural state says: 
"I served on both of our county draft boards, and was an 
associate member of the legal advisory board. ... I have 
already advised two women to take up the legal profession. 
. . . Acquire all the education you can ; if not able to gradu- 
ate spend at least one or two years in a law school, combin- 
ing it with work in an office." 

A western lawyer says: **A woman should have some 
business experience before entering the legal profession." 

A college graduate with a J. D, degree from one of the 
best university law schools in the country and experience in 
Legal Aid Society work makes the following illuminating 
comments : "I advise women to get as good as, if not a 
better legal training than men get, and to devote themselves 
exclusively to law, if possible, during the years of study. 
Only in this way can they become 'professional' and able 
to face well-trained men. The west offers better oppor- 



78 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

tunities in law than the east. I strongly advise legal train- 
ing for ambitious women who are attracted to social work 
or executive work, as well as for those who definitely want 
to practice. Practice is still hard to get, though not impos- 
sible. But the training is invaluable, and should open many 
fields to women. Personally, I am much interested in pro- 
posed legislative reform and its effects when undertaken ; 
and I hope to do some work in this line. In my professional 
training the thing most helpful for my working experience 
has been inventiveness in meeting practical situations and 
devising some way out and boldness in undertaking it. I 
consider my experience as attorney for a legal aid society 
the best possible training for the general practice of law. 
It was further valuable because it gave me an acquaintance 
with all the social service agencies and their methods." 



It is almost impossible at the present time to make a fair 
and adequate statement with respect to the situation and 
opportunities of women ministers and religious workers. 
Apart from ordained ministers only women with a corre- 
sponding training may properly be considered in a chapter 
on women in the learned professions. Many other workers 
under religious auspices, such as workers in the different 
departments of the Young Women's Christian Associations, 
parish visitors, workers in religious education, journalism, 
and publicity, secretaries of religious organizations, belong 
rather with the professions in which lie their training and 
experience. With the growing socialization of religious ac- 
tivities, women in almost every professional field may be 
found working under the direction of religious organiza- 
tions. In the past, requirements and salaries for men as 
well as women ministers and religious workers have often 
been pitifully below true professional standards. But there 
is a growing recognition on the part of religious bodies and 
the great religious associations that professional prepara- 
tion and working conditions for both men and women must 
approximate those found in the other professions, if 
organized religion is to meet its spiritual and social respon- 
sibilities in the world of to-day. There is also a growing 



MEDICINE, LAW, T?IE MINISTRY 79 

recognition that women should have a more active share in 
church government and administration. 

The main types of religious work for both women min- 
isters and non-ordained professional women are (i) parish 
work; (2) foreign and home missionary work; (3) adminis- 
trative and educational work, in connection with religious 
organizations.^ It is difficult to determine the position of 
women ministers to-day.^ The 1910 census reported 685. 
The Bureau of Education reported for 1916-1917 760 
women students and 6y graduates in a total of 169 theo- 
logical schools. But inquiry of several standard schools of 
theology reveals the fact that few of these women are pre- 
paring for active service in the ministry, probably fewer 
than were so preparing twenty or thirty years ago. The 
Elartford Theological Seminary has had over fifty women 
graduates, and has many women students in its School of 
Religious Pedagogy and Kennedy School of Missions, all 
three incorporated as the Hartford Seminary Foundation. It 
is impossible to say how many have been ordained as minis- 
ters.- Most women students of divinity appear to be fitting 
themselves for service as lay parish assistants, or as teachers, 
educational directors, secretaries, or missionaries. The Mead- 
ville Theological School of the Unitarian denomination es- 
tablished several years ago a special course for parish assist- 
ants and lay workers. The Tuckerman School in Boston is 
a similar Unitarian school for the training of lay workers. 
Union Theological Seminary has a cooperative arrangement 
with Teachers College of Columbia University, and a num- 
ber of women students in Teachers College are taking spe- 
cial courses in religious education. The Divinity School of 
the University of Chicago, which has a number of women 
enrolled, reports that few ai'e graduated. The National 
Training System of the Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tions is not closely comparable to the training given in the 
schools of divinity. But its two-year courses for secre- 

* See Oberlin Bulletin, Vocational Advice for College Students 
under Ministry, Foreign Missionary Work. Religious Work; Leland 
Stanford Junior University Bulletin, Vocational Information un- 
der Ministry. 

'See Women Preachers. Woman Citizen. December 18, 1920. 



8o WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

tarks and its many short surnmer and field courses are 
strongly religious as well as sociological and educational in 
character ; and many religious workers and missionaries are 
drafted from the ranks of Christian Association secre- 
taries. But it may be said that Association work is a pro- 
fession or a group of professions in itself.^ 

In general, apart from Christian Association work, the 
two religious fields which attract women in considerable 
numbers, and which are making steadily increasing demands 
for women of full professional training, are the missionary 
field and the field of religious education and administration. 
The modern missionary must be an educator, a social 
worker, a health worker, and a student of racial psychology 
and racial customs. It is often of the highest importance, 
in the eastern countries especially, that she have medical 
training. In the field of religious education and administra- 
tion, all the more important denominations have special 
departments in charge of experts who are seeking to or- 
ganize and improve the quality of religious instruction in 
their colleges, schools, Sunday schools, and classes for 
young people and adults. The Religious Education Associa- 
tion has been an active coordinating agency. Many of the 
denominations have also social-service departments. The 
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America has 
led in interdenominational activities; and the Interchurch 
World Movement employed men and women professional 
workers of many kinds. In short, the religious cooperations 
fostered by the war, the heightened interest of religious 
bodies in social and industrial problems, the great campaigns 
for funds, such as that recently completed by the Metho- 
dists, all promise a period of greatly enlarged religious 
enterprise and religious publicity. One of the most forward- 
looking programs for reconstruction is that issued by the 
Catholic War Council. All these movements need men and 
women with professional training, power of leadership, and 
genuine religious spirit. A result may be that women 
will find a new appeal in the active work of the ministry, 
and that we shall have more women in charge of parishes. 

^ See Oberlin Bulletin, Vocational Advice for College Students 
under F. W. C. A. 



MEDICINE, LAW, THE MINISTRY 8i 

There seems a special need for such women in country 
communities, where they might develop a vigorous church 
and social life in cooperation with the schools, the library, 
the grange, the county farm-bureau, the rural nurse, far 
better than the discouraged elderly parsons or callow youths 
from the seminary generally sent to such places. It 
would be well worth the while of the churches to try the 
experiment of sending a number of picked women ministers 
into rural parishes and to pay part of their salaries. At 
present, there are a few women ministers or assistant min- 
isters in parishes and a larger number' of pastor's assistants 
and parish visitors. The duties of these women are varied, 
including educational and social work, direction of clubs and 
organizations, making of parish calls, and frequently con- 
siderable secretarial, clerical, and bookkeeping work. 

We have returns from only five women in the field of 
religious work. They include a woman minister of success- 
ful experience in several parishes, now associate secretary of 
the department of religious education of the national board 
of her denomination; an assistant to the secretary of the 
board of pastoral supply of another denomination ; a parish 
assistant in a large eastern city; an office secretary of a city 
union church ; a pastor's helper in another city church. Only 
three report salaries, ranging from $720 to $2,100. Three 
are college graduates; one has had special courses at Ox- 
ford ; another has had a year of college work. One parish 
worker has taken a full theological course and has a degree 
in divinity. The minister says : "As a minister I participated 
in such community activities as women's clubs, playground 
associations, suffrage organizations, state board of civic 
leagues, and was a member of a goodly number of minis- 
terial organizations of various kinds, and have done active 
work with religious education associations of all denomina- 
tions, on committees and in conventions." Her advice to 
women entering the ministry or the work of religious educa- 
tion is: "Get thorough training. In this case it means 
the training of a professional school or, as a possible sub- 
stitute, after a college course, training in literary work and 
in special schools of religious education or special college 
courses in that subject." With regard to the salaries of 



^2 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

men and women ministers, she* observes : "Differences come 
from the fact that congregations are not yet used to women 
ministers, and before this year (1918) had Httle difficulty 
in securing a man for the pulpit if they wanted one. In 
every parish I have had since the first the congregation 
has paid me all it could have afforded to pay a man in my 
place ; in my last parish they secured my services by paying 
me $200 more than they had paid the man who preceded 
me. War conditions are likely to open more opportunities 
for women ministers. They will need just as extensive and 
intensive training as men receive for the highfest success. 
Men's failures are laid to their individual traits; women's, 
to the fact that they are women." 

A parish assistant says : "I superintend the church school ; 
keep the parish list, etc. ; arrange and assist in meetings and 
entertainments ; make calls ; indeed, do a little of everything. 
My work includes teaching, organizing, social and secretarial 
work; but teaching is rather more important than the 
others." 



CHAPTER V 

HEALTH SERVICES OTHER THAN MEDICINE 

The last chapter emphasized the growth of preventive 
and group medicine and the impetus given by the war to 
the movement for public health in the larger sense. We 
are undoubtedly entering upon a still more active period 
in the control of disease and the encouragement of positive 
health conditions, ideas, and practices. The key-notes of 
modern health work are education and cooperation. It 
therefore makes use of every means of reaching people : 
federal, state, and city governments ; schools, Hbraries, play- 
grounds, newspapers, magazines, motion-pictures ; shops, 
factories, labor unions ; organizations such as the Red Cross, 
women's clubs, chambers of commerce and civic leagues, 
Christian Associations, Knights of Columbus, Boy and Girl 
Scouts; health associations such as the National Tuber- 
culosis Association, the American Social Hygiene Asso- 
ciation, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene; com- 
mercial health enterprises such as the Life Extension In- 
stitute and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. It 
invites the cooperation of such agencies in the formulation 
and application of a comprehensive health program which 
is at the same time a comprehensive social program; en- 
lists health and social workers of many types; and evolves 
new types to meet new needs. In the development of the 
movement, the doctor, the sanitary engineer, the nurse, and 
the social worker have led the way, with the last two closest 
to the firing line. More recent are the medical social worker, 
the psychiatric social worker, the occupation therapist, the 
physiotherapist, the industrial hygienist, the physical edu- 
cator, the nutrition worker, the playground and recreation 
worker, the health publicity worker. Fundamental to them 
all is the laboratory research worker. Even to-day we can 

83 



84 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

hardly realize the extent to which health ideas are shaping 
contemporary education, social' and civic work, and proposed 
legislation. While the functions and professional status of 
the newer types of health worker are matters of conspicuous 
discussion and experimentation, there is going on a quiet re- 
formulation of the older conceptions of both doctor and 
nurse, and an active effort to utilize every type of worker 
in a statesmanlike attack upon the many problems of social 
and individual health. 

This cooperation gives promise of coming about most 
practically and effectively through the development of local 
health centers. Many have already been organized experi- 
mentally throughout the country under state, city, or non- 
governmental auspices, Ohio has a new health center law. 
New York and other states are proposing to establish them. 
The American Red Cross has a program for health cen- 
ters. The federal Children's Bureau ^ through its Children's 
Year campaign and through its continuous activities for 
child welfare has led in the spreading of the idea. Its 
urban and rural health studies have called attention to the 
child of "pre-school" age. The "social unit" experiment 
in Cincinnati has done its most intensive work in community 
and child health. The model department of charities and 
corrections of Westchester County, New York, lays a like 
emphasis. The Framingham, tuberculosis demonstration 
points out the value of local coordination of health activities. 

Fully organized health centers would be stations for health 
teaching, information, and advice, health services of all 
kinds. They would be more than clinics and dispensaries,^ 
though they would include them, for their work would be 
preventive even more than curative, and would serve all 
social and economic groups. They would provide pre-natal 
and infant-care service; child-hygiene service; service for 
special diseases, such as tuberculosis, diabetes, cardiac de- 
fects, venereal diseases ; industrial hygiene service ; nutrition 
and mental hygiene services all along the line. They would 

^See Children's Bureau Publications (1912 to date). 

^ For a constructive conception of these agencies, see Michael M. 
Davis and Andrew R. Warner, Dispensaries: Their Management 
and Development (1918). 



OTHER HEALTH SERVICES 85 

map the health needs and the health opportunities of the 
district served, and would connect it with the larger health 
resources of the city, county, state, and nation, of which 
they would be local units. They would work in close rela- 
tions with schools, playground and recreation agencies, 
housing and food-distributing agencies, commercial and in- 
dustrial establishments. They would focus and coordinate 
the efforts of doctors, nurses, nutrition workers, child-wel- 
fare workers, medical and psychiatric social workers, teach- 
ers, physical and recreation directors, housing and food in- 
spectors, industrial health workers. Such health centers 
would become clearing-houses for many community efforts 
that are now carried on independently and frequently over- 
lap. Health matters are concrete and understandable, and 
when the emphasis is upon prevention and education, they 
become a rallying-point for community activity, and harness 
to themselves many other interests. It is moreover, essential 
to keep in mind as the health center movement develops, 
that it must be carried on with active community coopera- 
tion, management, and support, and not as a philanthropic 
enterprise. 

Until such health centers are generally established, there 
are many agencies and many workers engaged in the further- 
ing of health policies and health undertakings. There are 
likewise a growing number of institutions other than medical 
schools which offer training of a professional character for 
health workers. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
organized the pioneer course in public health and sanitary 
engineering, and has conducted a cooperative course with 
Harvard University, leading to the degrees of master and 
doctor of public health. A number of state universities 
have similar courses. Yale University has within a few 
years developed a strong graduate department of public 
health in connection with its medical school. In 1918 Johns 
Hopkins University opened its School of Hygiene and Pub- 
lic Health with a minimum admission requirement of two 
years of college work. The Woman's Medical College of 
Pennsylvania inaugurated in 191 9 a course in public health. 
Teachers College of Columbia University maintains a De- 
partment of Nursing and Health open to graduate nurses 



86 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

with full high school education. Simmons College has sim- 
ilar courses. The Nursing Service of the American Red 
Cross is offering fellowships in public health. The vari- 
ous schools of social work are giving courses in health 
problems, in. medical social service, and in psychiatric social 
service. The Rockefeller Foundation actively furthers 
health research and health education along various lines. 
State and city boards of health and bureaus of child hygiene, 
hospitals, clinics, dispensaries, educational and other institu- 
tions, organizations, and industries are all calling for health 
workers. The United States Public Health Service is carry- 
ing on some of the health movements inaugurated as war 
measures, and is planning further activities in connection 
with state health authorities, if Congress provide the funds. 
The problems of an adequate rural health service press for 
attention and action. The Red Cross has a program for 
rural health work. Health surveys are being made under 
various auspices. Investigators, organizers, teachers, pub- 
licity workers, are needed in these various projects. There 
are multiplying opportunities for training in all these types 
of work. 

Of health workers other than doctors, the hundred thou- 
sand odd graduate, or registered, nurses are by far the 
largest, best-known, and oldest group. Nursing, like medi- 
cine, is in process of reorganization. But for the present, it 
is in the main a potential rather than an actual profession, to 
be compared with teaching more truly than with law or 
medicine. Its signal services in the war and the widespread 
interest then aroused in nursing education have focused 
attention both upon its limitations and its possibiHties. It 
already possesses some unmistakable marks of a profession 
as this book uses the term — a definite type of training for a 
practical end ; strong group spirit and organization ; state 
examination and registration. It even looks forward to a 
mandatory license system for all practitioners, as in medi- 
cine. But conditions persist which seriously compromise its 
assured position as a profession. Chief among these are: 
(i) the wide variations in the quality and standing of 
hospital training schools for nurses; (2) the low standards 
of preliminary education required for admission to hospital 



OTHER HEALTH SERVICES 87 

training schools; (3) J:he fact that hospitals profit financially 
from the services of student nurses in their training schools ; 
(4) the traditional conception of the nurse as a routine 
worker with the individual patient and not with the family 
or the community, and thus concerned with cure rather than 
with prevention. 

The leaders in the nursing world clearly recognize these 
defects and have taken active steps to remedy them. The 
study of nursing education now in progress under the 
auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation is bound to be fruit- 
ful of professional results in many ways. Even before the 
war a committee of the National League of Nursing Educa- 
tion issued a Standard Curriculum for Schools of Nursing 
which embodies the best existing practice and points toward 
further professional development, while frankly r'ecognizing 
present lacks and difficulties. It urges graduation from an 
accredited high school as an admission requirement "which 
is insisted upon for every other type of professional train- 
ing" ; and advocates the af^liation of schools of nursing 
with adjacent colleges and universities, the granting of nine 
months' credit to students who have taken certain college 
courses in science, and, when possible, the joint college and 
nursing course. During the war the Army School of Nurs- 
ing required high school graduation for admission. A num- 
ber of the leading hospitals also make this requirement ; and 
training schools which are an integral part of universities 
hold to the regular standards of college entrance. New 
York is raising its educational requirements for nurses, so 
that by 1924 only high-school graduates will be admitted to 
hospital training schools in that state. But there is still 
a highly unprofessional variation in the standards of train- 
ing schools. Some provide only a two years' course, and 
admit students with only one year of high school or even 
with only a grammar school education. There is an in- 
creasing demand for a systematic study and rating of schools 
of nursing and the pubHcation of a list of standard schools, 
as in the case of medicine. Until this is done, women 
thinking of nursing as a profession should look carefully 
into the matter of preparation, and select a school of un- 
impeachable standing, affiliated if possible with an educa- 



88 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

tional institution. Training schools are already ranked as A 
and B by the United States Bureau of Education. 

Even a high-school education, however, is not sufficient 
pre-professional training for the leaders in nursing, if it is 
to keep pace with other professions. An increasing number 
of universities, following the lead of the universities of 
Minnesota and Cincinnati, Western Reserve University, the 
State University of Iowa, and the University of California, 
are offering a five-year course leading to the bachelor's 
degree and the diploma in nursing, and are providing grad- 
uate courses in public health nursing, nursing administration, 
and nursing education. Teachers College of Columbia Uni- 
versity is adopting this plan. The University of Michigan 
has recently established a professorship of pubHc health 
nursing. War-emergency efforts to increase the supply of 
nurses with good educational background, such as the Vas- 
sar Summer Training Camp for Nurses, which gave pre- 
liminary training to nearly five hundred college graduates 
entering hospitals for a two years' course, have had a lasting 
effect in interesting a larger number of college women in 
nursing. Even more important, they have introduced the 
colleges and the training schools to one another. 

The aspect of the present training school system most 
seriously demanding investigation is the amount of routine 
hospital service required of the student nurse and prolonged 
for the benefit of the hospital after its educational value 
has been exhausted. In no profession are actual practice 
and the acquirement of certain techniques more important 
than in nursing. But theory and practice must be educa- 
tionally related as in other types of professional training. 
The financial basis of nursing education is at present thor- 
oughly unsound and unprofessional, with the danger of 
exploitation of the student constantly lurking within it. 
Only with endowed or publicly supported schools of nursing 
or the working out of some other satisfactory arrangement, 
will the three years given to the training of the nurse become 
actually as well as nominally educational. When the time 
spent with patients and on wards is reorganized on a basis 
of supervised laboratory and practice work, there will be 
an opportunity to enrich the present meager content of the 



OTHER HEALTH SERVICES 89 

nursing curriculum and to bring the teaching up to modern 
professional standards. 

Training school teaching can no longer be done by any 
nurse or doctor available. It must be done by properly 
trained and adequately paid instructors. It can no longer 
confine itself to what goes on within the walls of the hos- 
pital. It must show the social and economic wastes of sick- 
ness and injury, the social and personal significance of 
health. It must make use of problem and project and dis- 
cussion and laboratory methods instead of the old rote 
cramming of text-books and the old drill learning of tech- 
niques. It must provide for observation field trips. It 
must include something that has yet to be worked' out, a 
simple and practical course in psychology and mental 
hygiene with special attention to illness and convalescence 
and the psychological grounds for positive health interests 
and responses. A redistribution of the time allotted to 
instruction and to practical hospital duties is being forced 
upon many hospitals by the legal requirements in certain 
states of an eight-hour day for nurses. A few leading hos- 
pitals are trying the experiment of having their student 
nurses live outside like other students, meeting a regular 
program of classroom, ward, and laboratory engagements. 
It may be that some plan will be worked out for certain years 
or certain terms of hospital residence or "nursing interne- 
ship" during the course rather than the present method of 
residence for the entire three years. But whatever the final 
forms and varieties of nursing education, it has at least 
entered upon a period of active inquiry and vigorous growth 
in desirable directions. 

This has largely come about through the new position 
and responsibilities of the nurse in the public health move- 
ment. Her duties are no longer confined to bedside nursing 
in the hospital or in the private home under the immediate 
direction of the doctor in charge of the individual case. 
The public health nurse — whether under a visiting nurse as- 
sociation, a board of health, a board of education, a com- 
munity center, an industrial corporation ; whether tuberculo- 
sis nurse, infant welfare nurse, pre-school nurse, school 
nurse, industrial nurse, mental hygiene nurse — is respon- 



90 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

sible to a group. vSlie cooperates with various doctors, social 
workers, public otiicials, organizations. She must know the 
social and economic standards and customs of the neighbor- 
hood in which she works and the families with which she 
has to do. She must know how to utilize and to develop 
all the resources of the community, those that make for 
health as well as those that bring assistance in time of 
illness. In this way, she becomes an expert field agent in 
matters of health rather than the subordinate of a single 
physician. The problem of the relations between the social- 
ized nurse and the socialized physician still remain to be 
worked out by the two groups. There are still sharply 
divergent views and persistent traditions from th^ old in- 
dividualistic order of things in both medicine and nursing. 
It is undoubtedly true that bedside care of the sick is an 
essential technique for nurses of every type. In private 
cases the nurse is unquestionably under the doctor's orders ; 
but the growing emphasis upon the importance of nursing 
care renders her position even there one of great respon- 
sibility. It by no means follows that her entire hospital 
training should be carried on as a sort of military discip- 
line, with discouragement of initiative and encouragement 
of merely routine skill. In the past, however, this has too 
often been the case ; and it has done much to disqualify 
the nurse as a professional worker. The shortage of nurses 
during the war reduced their private employment ; and it 
may come to pass that for rich as well as poor serious 
cases will be given hospital treatment and minor cases will 
be treated at home through a visiting nurse service. It is 
certainly true that at present "private nursing" is not con- 
ducted on a wholly professional basis either as regards 
charges or mode of engagement. The most poorly equipped 
teacher or social worker is employed and paid by a re- 
sponsible group. 

Socialized or public health nursing is already divided into 
various fields, requiring special preparation. How much of 
this should be given in the undergraduate nursing course, 
how much should be left for special graduate study is mat- 
ter of discussion among experts in nursing education. Prob- 
ably, as in other professions, the undergraduate training 



OTHER HEALTH SERVICES 91 

should open up the several fields but should leave full equip- 
ment to subsequent specialization. 

Whatever may be said of the professional standing of 
private or "bedside" nurses, three groups of nurses have 
undoubted professional responsibilities, and are coming 
to possess preliminary education and special training of 
an unmistakably professional character. These are ad- 
ministrative nurses, teaching nurses, and public health 
nurses. Nurses with college education, experience, and 
graduate training are in large demand as superintendents of 
nurses in well organized hospitals, as directors and teachers 
in training schools, as executive heads of visiting nurse asso- 
ciations or other health organizations, as investigators and 
makers of surveys. Nurses are sometimes heads of small 
hospitals, sanatoria, and other institutions. Public health 
nursing is increasing by leaps and bounds. With the estab- 
lishment of neighborhood health centers, various types of 
public health nurse will be assigned to them — mother and 
infant welfare nurses, tuberculosis nurses, possibly school 
nurses, psychiatric nurses, and industrial nurses.^ In the 
small town or rural district, there may be only a single pub- 
lic health nurse. Industrial nurses employed by corpora- 
tions are among the most recent of public health develop- 
ments, and their position and responsibilities vary widely, 
and are still unstandardized.^ Perhaps eventually they 
will be more properly attached to an adjacent health center. 
Many large department stores, hotels, and other commercial 
firms employ nurses for their workers and patrons. 

Women planning to enter any one of these three profes- 
sional nursing groups should have had as full a college 
education as possible, with courses in the laboratory sciences, 
especially in bacteriology and the chemistry of nutrition, 
psychology, and the economic and social sciences. Interest 
in art and literature are valuable assets. If they have not 
already secured college education, they should select one of 
the five-year courses leading to a college degree and a nurs- 
ing diploma. A woman beginning her professional work at 
twenty-five or even thirty thus equipped will go farther 

*Mary S. Gardner. Public Health Nursing (1916). 
'See Florence S. Wright. Industrial Nursing (1919). 



92 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

professionally than a woman with only the ordinary three- 
year course at a training school. Women entering nursing 
need good health, steadiness and persistence, a liking for 
people, cheerful common sense, an interest in both the scien- 
tific and the practical sides of the work and in its social rela- 
tions. 

There is a steady demand for well-trained nurses with 
special equipment. The great nursing organizations, the 
Red Cross Bureau of Information for Nurses in New York, 
the cooperative nurses' registries, and the training schools 
are all means of securing employment. The commercial 
nurses' registries are to be avoided by the professional nurse. 

Private bedside nursing at a high weekly rate is said to 
pay better than salaried nursing along any of the above 
lines. But the work is irregular, exhausting, and lacking in 
many of the professional satisfactions and contacts of the 
salaried type of position. As educational and personal 
standards rise, salaries for nurses compare favorably with 
those in other professions. Of fifteen salaried nurses filling 
our schedules for the most part in 1918, eleven received sal- 
aries ranging from $900 to $3,000 with a median salary of 
$1,300. One group includes a superintendent of a hospital 
and training school in a good-sized eastern city; a superin- 
tendent of a visiting nurse association in a great middle- 
western city, in charge of a staff of ninety-six nurses and 
six office workers ; a director of nurses in a divisional head- 
quarters of the American Red Cross ; a chief child welfare 
supervisor of a New England state department of health. 
Salaries in this group are from $1,500 and traveling 
expenses to $3,000. Another group includes three district 
supervisors in the state department of health above men- 
tioned, each having oversight of some thirty or forty cities 
and towns and carrying on educational and investigational 
child hygiene work ; a district supervisor of an eastern 
visiting nurse association, in charge of seven nurses; a 
supervising nurse under the civic improvement league of a 
large southern city; a visiting nurse for a middle-western 
tuberculosis society. Salaries here range from $900 to 
$1,400 with a median salary of $1,200. The industrial 
group includes five nurses, employed by a Northern Michi- 



OTHER HEALTH SERVICES 93 

gan mining company and firms manufacturing confection- 
en^, shoes, rubber tires, and automobiles. Salaries range 
from $900 to $1,320 with a median salary of $1,120. In 
addition, seven large manufacturing companies report that 
they employ from one to fourteen nurses. 

Of the fifteen nurses one is a college graduate with train- 
ing in a good hospital and a year's course at a school of 
social work ; one is a normal school graduate ; three are high- 
school graduates ; two were educated in private schools ; 
three have only an elementary school education. Four have 
had graduate courses in public health ; one has taken college 
work in domestic science ; two have had summer courses for 
nurses at a school of social work. Several have been school 
teachers, hospital superintendents of nurses, superintendents 
of visiting nurse associations, school nurses, visiting nurses, 
and so on. 

The supervisor-in-chief of a recently established child 
conservation service under a state department of health 
says: "If I had my life to live over again, I should make a 
great effort to get a college education and I should also enter 
a large, well-known hospital for training. I feel that my year 
of teaching in a country school, which I consider part of my 
general education, was most helpful, as was my post- 
graduate course in public health." 

The superintendent of a large visiting nurse association 
says : *'Get first a good hospital training* some private duty, 
and plan for post-graduate work in social theory. Promo- 
tion in our association used to be automatic. It now depends 
on work, ability, personality, etc." 

Another nurse doing state child conservation work says : 
"Have at least a high school education ; train in the hospital 
giving the best training in surgery, obstetrics, children, and 
infant feeding." She regrets her lack of college education. 

The "social welfare nurse" in a mining company says: 
"This corporation are highly desirable employers, apprecia- 
tive of their employees. They give prizes for better gardens 
and fewer accidents in mines. ... In the first year they 
gave me a week to visit other industrial plants ; in the sec- 
ond, a six weeks' course at the Chicago School of Civics and 
Philanthropy; in the third, a trip to the Anti-Tuberculosis 



94 



WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 



Convention." Her work includes bedside nursing, investiga- 
tion, teaching, infant welfare, and pre-natal care. 

The single nurse in a large automobile manufacturing 
company says : 'Tt is an old corporation, and I believe they 
are adjusting things to modern thought and needs as fast as 
possible. However, much remains to be done. There is no 
special training available in this city. I keep in touch with 
other workers through the American Journal of Nursing, 
the Public Health Quarterly, and through conventions, 
which I have leave of absence without pay to attend." 

A staff nurse in a rubber company employing 5,000 people 
is assigned to first-aid and illness work. She is under a 
physician and a non-medical man superintendent of the 
health department. She says: "Each nurse has her own 
line of responsibilities. They must have ability to handle all 
nationalities of men and women. The company provides 
dining-room, rest-room, and reading-rooms in care of a 
matron." 

The employment manager of a large metal products fac- 
tory says : "The nurse has a good deal of authority in ad- 
mitting to work people who have been out sick and in regu- 
lating the cleanliness, ventilation, and improvements in the 
mill." 



About fifteen years ago, the realization that hospital care 
was often only partially and temporarily successful because 
of ignorance of a patient's home, family, and occupational 
circumstances and of the agencies to bring to bear upon 
conditions needing correction or improvement ; that return- 
ing a convalescent to the very situation that caused or con- 
tributed to his illness was a stupid human and economic 
waste, led to the idea of employing a trained social case 
worker as a hospital home visitor, or, as she came to be 
called, a hospital social worker. With later specializations, 
the social worker attached to a general hospital, dispensary, 
or clinic has come to be known as a medical social worker ; 
the worker attached to a mental or psychopathic hospital, 
ward, clinic, or other agency, has come to be known as a 
psychiatric or mental-hygiene social worker. Both groups 
have recently united to form the American Association of 



OTHER HEALTH SERVICES 95 

Hospital Social Workers, which has representation in the 
Conference on Hospital Service, made up of delegates from 
fifteen national organizations having more or less special 
interest in hospital work. 

The two groups, medical and psychiatric, have their own 
problems of training and practice; but each has much to 
learn from the other. They both work under medical super- 
vision with '*in-patients" or **out-patients." So far, there- 
fore, their purpose has been rehabilitation rather than pre- 
vention. But their intimate acquaintance with the patient 
and his circumstances enables them to carry on consider- 
able educational work with his family and associates and 
to furnish invaluable data to agencies working for educa- 
tion and preventive legislation. Workers with this training 
are being increasingly employed by public health organiza- 
tions and by social agencies. 

The first full-time medical social worker was appointed in 
1905 in the out-patient department of the Massachusetts 
General Hospital in Boston through the efforts of Dr. 
Richard C. Cabot.^ Partial beginnings had already been 
made in this country and elsewhere through out-patient de- 
partments, after-care committees, and visiting nurse associa- 
tions. To-day there are not far from three hundred hos- 
pitals in the United States employing social workers, some 
of them with large staffs.^ 

There is still discussion as to whether the medical social 
worker should have had nurse's training, and considerable 
difference of opinion. Some of the most successful have 
been nurses ; others equally successful have not been. Miss 
Gardner says : "The nurse who takes up medical social 
service work differs from other public health nurses in 
that she deliberately enters another profession . . . her 
nurse's training, though most valuable, and in the opinion 
of many, indispensable, becomes at the same time almost 
worthless, unless it is supplemented by a thorough work- 
ing knowledge of the fundamental principles of modern 
social work."^ 

* See his Social Work (1919), especially Introduction and Part I. 
^ See Edna G. Henry. Modern Hospital. March, 1920. 
^Public Health Nursing, pp. 320, 321. See all of Chapter 6. 



96 



WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 



Dr. Cabot says: "It may be said with truth that the 
training of a nurse, as we know it in America, at any 
rate, really unfits a woman in some respects for the work 
of a social worker, since it accustoms her to habitual obedi- 
ence and subordination." ^ 

There seems an increasing need for both types of health 
worker and nothing to be gained by breaking down the 
distinction between them, although they should work in 
active cooperation. The special techniques of the medical 
or psychiatric social worker are those of family case work 
and modern applied psychology; her general background and 
connections are medical. The special techniques of the 
public health nurse are those of medical assistance and 
care and the encouragement of health conditions ; her gen- 
eral background and connections are social and civic. The 
function of both is educational; but their professional and 
social functions are distinct. 

The psychiatric social worker is a much more recent and 
more specialized development than the medical social worker. 
Neither her title nor her training took definite form until 
the summer of 1918, when Smith College and the Boston 
State Psychopathic Hospital, with an advisory committee 
of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, established 
as a war-emergency measure the Smith College Training 
School of Psychiatric Social Work with an intensive course 
of eight weeks, followed by nine months of supervised 
practice training under leading hospitals and social agen- 
cies.^ Over sixty students completed the course, which now 
requires two summers. The New York School of Social 
Work began in 1919-1920 a two-year course in mental 
hygiene and psychiatric social work under the direction 
of a distinguished social psychiatrist. It also offers a course 
in medical social service. The Philadelphia School of Social 
Service announces similar courses ; and other schools are 
following. 

^Social Work, p. 19. See also Ida M. Cannon. Social Work in 
Hospitals (1913) and file of Mental Hygiene. 

^For a year or so before 1918, a small group of college grad- 
uates had received apprentice training at the Boston Psychopathic 
Hospital, under Miss Mary C. Jarrett, chief of social service and 
later director of the Smith School. 



I 
I 



OTHER HEALTH SERVICES 97 

Even before the war, a growing number of mental hospi- 
tals employed social workers with more or less training, 
chiefly for after-care work with paroled or discharged pa- 
tients. These must not be confused with eugenics workers, 
whose main object is to trace the family histories of cases. 
During the war there was systematic and enlightened pro- 
vision for the first time in history for the treatment of 
mental and nervous disturbance and disease among sol- 
diers. The large number of cases of "shell-shock," the 
popular misnomer for all forms of "war psychosis," has 
called attention to the presence of an even larger number of 
persons in civil life of unstable or "psychopathic" make-up 
as distinguished from the legally insane ; and has brought us 
to the point where it is possible to wage a great campaign 
for mental health under the leadership of the National 
Committee for Mental Hygiene, with the cooperation of doc- 
tors, social workers, nurses, parents, teachers, employers and 
employed. We are coming to recognize the necessary co- 
operation of the psychiatrist, the psychologist, and the spe- 
cially trained social worker in the juvenile court, children's 
societies, organizations and institutions for delinquents of 
all sorts. We are at the beginning of studying the conditions 
of industrial mental health. The American Red Cross has 
employed a considerable number of psychiatric social work- 
ers both with returned soldiers and with civilians, sending 
them to be trained at the Smith School of Social Work 
and elsewhere. 

Three medical and six psychiatric social workers filled 
our schedules. In the medical group salaries range from 
$1,500 to $2,600 with a median salary of $1,800, and ages 
range from thirty-five to forty-five. In the psychiatric 
group salaries range from $960 to $1,500 with a median 
salary of $1,160; ages from twenty-five to thirty-five. These 
last figures indicate the newness of the psychiatric field. 
The lowest salaries paid in 1918 represent positions of a 
learner-in-service or apprentice character. Probably to-day 
beginners with special training in psychiatric social work, 
including supervised practice, would receive from $1,200 to 
$1,800. They should receive not less than $1,400. Two of 



98 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

the medical social workers are graduate nurses; none of the 
psychiatric. 

One of the medical group is a college graduate with a 
master's degree in sociology ; another has had special college 
courses, nurse's training, and a two years' course in a school 
of social work. Five of the psychiatric group are college 
graduates : one is a doctor of philosophy in psychology ; two 
have had training in schools of social work. All have had 
previous experience in some form of social case work. One 
has previously been a medical social worker. Four are con- 
nected with the social service of psychopathic hospitals ; one 
is social worker in a state hospital for the insane; one is 
social service director in a state committee for mental 
hygiene. 

The suggestions given by these workers are characteristic 
of those who have blazed their way in a new field and who 
realize the economy of securing through proper training 
what they themselves have had to acquire through the 
rougher methods of ability profiting by experience. 

A pioneer head of a great hospital department says : *^*Get 
the best possible social training with case work experience. 
Get, if possible, medical training. Get experience in a hos- 
pital social service department. The most valuable things in 
my general education have been living in various parts of 
the country and meeting people of various economic stand- 
ards quite naturally ; in my professional training, familiarity 
with hospital life and technique, appreciation of the psychol- 
ogy of sick people, knowledge of feeble-minded children. I 
wish that I had had more definite medical training, more 
famiHarity with convalescent patients, more technical re- 
search training, more languages, especially French, German, 
and ItaHan." 

A leader in psychiatric social work says: "Only those 
temperamentally suited tO' the work should undertake it. It 
requires personality above everything ; next to that, maturity 
and emotional stability and a background of special train- 
ing in psychology. In my general education the things most 
helpful for my working experience were teaching and tutor- 
ing for my tuition, debating, public-speaking, and dra- 
matics ; in my professional training, working out philosophy 



OTHER HEALTH SERVICES 99 

and psychology that could be used. In my own education 
too much time was consumed in public school, too much time 
wasted on dead languages. There were no opportunities 
for creative work through use of the hands and no practical 
contacts with real life." 

Another psychiatric social worker says : "Psychiatric so- 
cial workers need two years, preferably at a school of social 
work, particularly along medical-social and psychiatric- 
social lines. In college I should advise courses in psychol- 
ogy, economics, one of the exact sciences, and some foreign 
language courses." 

Another says: *Tn my college education I should have 
had more emphasis laid on psychology and economics, both 
theoretical and practical; in my professional training more 
practical experience." 

Another type of health worker too often confused with 
the psychiatric social worker is the occupational therapist. 
This group received a large amount of attention during the 
war on account of the plans made by the Surgeon General's 
Office for the use of curative or "diversional" occupations 
in the military hospitals and the calls issued by its division 
of physical reconstruction for "aids in occupational 
therapy." War emergency training courses in this field were 
offered by Columbia University and in Boston, Philadelphia, 
Chicago, and elsewhere. For several years the Illinois 
Society for Mental Hygiene has maintained the Henry 
Baird Favill School of Occupations in cooperation with Hull 
House and the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. 
For a number of years physicians and psychologists have 
realized the value of handicraft occupations for convales- 
cents and their therapeutic influence in nervous and mental 
disease.^ Private hospitals and sanitariums have established 
departments of arts and crafts, — weaving, wood-carving, 
basketry, modeling, and so on. State hospitals have em- 
ployed patients in gardening and farming and in various 
forms of shop-work, mattress, brush, and basket making, 
chair-caning, and the like. In some training schools 

* See George Edward Barton. Occupations for the Sick (1920). 
Herbert J. Hall. Handicrafts for the Handicapped (1915). 



loo WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

nurses have received instruction in craft occupations. 
For the most part, however, this work has not been 
closely correlated with medical diagnosis and treatment, 
and has been for the purpose of keeping patients occupied 
and quiet as much as for strictly therapeutic purposes. 
It has commonly been in charge of an arts and crafts 
worker who was neither a psychologist nor a psychiatric 
social worker. In general hospitals it has been Httle em- 
ployed. In the military hospitals and especially in Base 
Hospital 117, to which men suffering from nervous and 
mental disorders were sent directly from the front, serious 
efforts were made to study the" whole matter of work 
psychology and to make the workshop an integral part of 
medical treatment.^ On the basis of the war experience, the 
subject of occupational therapy is likely to receive much 
more careful and scientific consideration. Columbia 
University is considering the establishment of a two-year 
course of training. There is a National Society for the 
Promotion of Occupational Therapy. As yet the occupa- 
tional therapist can hardly be thought of as a fully pro- 
fessional health worker ; but the movement has been of 
value in calling attention to the intimate relations between 
suitable occupation and physical and mental health. A 
group of experts, centering about the Boston Psychopathic 
Hospital, have begun research work on the psychology and 
psychopathology of industrial employments, an inquiry of 
the utmost importance. 



Still another health worker of whom the war made use in 
new ways is the teacher or director of physical education. 
The older notion of physical training as a matter of formal 
drill and gymnastic exercise has been yielding for some years 
to a less formal and more constructive view of health 
through hygienic living, including proper exercise, diet, 
sleep, bathing, clothing, posture, and recreation. Active re- 
search has been going on in all these fields and in the field of 
physical measurements and records. The Playground and 

* See Sidney L. Schwab. The Experiment in Occupational Ther- 
apy at Base Hospital 117, A. E. F. Mental Hygiene. October, 1919. 



OTHER HEALTH SERVICES loi 

Recreation Association of America has fostered a wide- 
spread interest in group plays, games, dances, pageants, and 
festivals. Music and exercise have been combined in rhyth- 
mic gymnastics. Love of outdoor life, v^^ood-lore, and camp 
activities has been encouraged by such organizations as Boy 
and Girl Scouts, Camp-Fire Girls, "hiking clubs," and sim- 
ilar enterprises. There are a number of good schools of 
physical education, some of them connected with colleges 
and universities. Young women of intelligence, physical 
vigor, liking for young people, power of leadership, and 
social imagination will find many opportunities in this 
field of health work. Positions exist not only in schools 
and colleges, both public and private, but in public 
playgrounds, Young Women's Christian Associations, set- 
tlements, community centers, organizations for boys and 
girls and for young women. There is a growing move- 
ment toward employing- directors of physical education 
and recreation in stores and factories. Workers in cor- 
rective gymnastics are employed by orthopedic surgeons 
and in orthopedic hospitals, classes and schools for crip- 
pled children. *'Aids in physiotherapy" were in great 
demand by the Surgeon General's Office for work in mili- 
tary hospitals to assist in restoring the functions of joints 
and muscles. A Summer School for Industrial Health 
Officers was conducted at Mount Holyoke College in 1918 
to prepare women with college or equivalent training and 
some industrial experience to act as health leaders for 
women employed in munitions factories or other factories 
working on war contracts for the government. It is the belief 
:)f Dr. Kristine Mann, the director of the course, and others 
in this field that there is need of such a trained health of- 
ficer or industrial hygienist wherever there are large groups 
of women employed in industry or commerce, to furnish 
positive health guidance and suggestion in all matters of 
daily living. They hold that the industrial nurse is too 
much identified with ideas and techniques connected with 
sickness to be able to do this successfully. It is hardly 
necessary to say that industrial nurses do not agree: 
Whether there is a permanent and developing place for this 
new type of health worker remains to be seen. Those most 



102 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

interested are making plans for a thoroughly professional 
course of training, which shall include the first two years 
of medical preparation. It may well be that ail health 
workers who are not physicians need a more solid founda- 
tion than they receive at present in the anatomical, physio- 
logical, bacteriological, and chemical aspects of medicine. 
It is certain that they need more psychology and mental 
hygiene. In any event, physical education is a type of social 
and public health work that should increasingly attract 
young college women who are robust, courageous, active in 
mind and body. Physical and play directors occupy a 
strategic position as social workers without the label. They 
often do the finest kind of service for citizenship and the 
community through bringing native and foreign-born groups 
together in recreational activities and through providing 
wholesome expression for that spirit of youth which too 
often finds its only outlet in the city streets. 

The war has likewise shown us that the social hygiene 
worker is in a very direct sense a health worker, and that 
the spread of venereal diseases can be controlled and higher 
standards established only by a "four-fold program of edu- 
cation, law enforcement, recreation, and medical measures," 
to quote the program of the American Social Hygiene Asso- 
ciation. Every probation officer or other worker with de- 
linquent or wayward women and girls should know both 
the medical and the mental elements involved; and it may 
not be long before special professional courses will be 
planned for health workers in these fields who are neither 
doctors nor nurses.^ 

^ Nutrition workers are dealt with in Chapter VII, scientific 
workers in health laboratories in Chapter XVII. 



CHAPTER VI 

FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES I I 

The war and the difficult period since its close have pre- 
sented on a world scale the methods and problems of food 
production, distribution, and consumption, and have shown 
us that agriculture, marketing of food products, and "home 
economics" are interrelated and not separate fields. Even 
to-day it is probable that most of us do not realize the extent 
to which we were educated in matters of food-supply and 
food-uses during the war, nor how well this knowledge is 
serving us in meeting the present exaggerated cost of living 
and labor shortage. Before the war we were a notably 
wasteful and unthinking people as regards food and living 
expenditures. We have still much to learn. But the war 
activities of the Department of Agriculture and the Food 
Administration provided in effect a great system of publicity 
and extension teaching. Local war-gardens, canning clubs, 
municipal markets, and "clothes clinics" were demonstration 
stations. The use of flour, sugar, meat, and fat substitutes 
provided a course in food values ; and the wide distribution 
of food price-Hsts a course in food economics. The 
work of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, the Amer- 
ican Relief Commission, and unofficial agencies have taught 
us to think of food and living conditions in the barest terms 
of human health and welfare and as underlying all sound 
international relations. Especially have they tragically re- 
vealed that the very life of peoples depends upon the proper 
nutrition of mothers and children; and have led us to con- 
front with new energy and understanding the problems of 
malnutrition of children and adults in our own country. 
Here the federal Children's Bureau, and various public 
health and home economics organizations are leading the 

103 



I04 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

way. On the economic side, the great thrift campaign of 
the federal Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve 
banks is reenforced by financial and social agencies in the 
endeavor to show that thrift is a matter not merely of saving 
but of intelligent planning and spending. The enforcement 
of prohibition through the eighteenth amendment and the 
wider participation of women in public affairs through the 
passage of the nineteenth amendment both have direct bear- 
ings upon problems of food and living, and promise better 
coordinated and more enlightened action. 

Food, clothing, housing are all in a new sense public ques- 
tions, intimately connected with health, industry, and recrea- 
tion. The agencies supplying them are coming to be looked 
upon as ''public utilities." The cost of living and new ideas 
regarding the relations of workers and employers are lead- 
ing to quantity-feeding projects on an unprecedented scale 
and to a revolution in methods of service through cafe- 
terias, canteens, cooked-food services, etc., in factories, 
stores, office-buildings, residence neighborhoods. They are 
sharply modifying practices in hotels, restaurants, education- 
al and other institutions. Here again, the quantity- feeding 
enterprises during the war have provided invaluable expe- 
rience, although many peace-time applications and develop- 
ments remain to be worked out. It is undoubtedly because 
of these demonstrations as well as because of coercive cur- 
rent prices that the cooperative movement among consumers 
appears for the first time to be taking vigorous root in the 
United States.^ 

Two great government agencies, the Department of Agri- 
culture and the Federal Board for Vocational Education, 
established in 19 17, cooperate actively with the states, en- 
couraging in every possible way the most modern ideas and 
practices in food production, distribution, and consumption, 
and the best modern methods of education along these lines. 
Educationally, the Department of Agriculture is most closely 
allied with the state agricultural and mechanical colleges and 
the state experiment stations ; the Federal Board with agri- 
cultural and industrial training in secondary and special 
vocational schools. But the Board contributes funds to the 

^ See publications of the Cooperative League of America. 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 105 

states for the training of vocational teachers in universities, 
colleges, and normal schools. The Department of Agricul- 
ture is one of the great research agencies of the world, and 
carries on tireless investigations through its bureaus of 
plant and animal industry, chemistry, soils, entomology, bio- 
logical survey, weather, and crop estimates. Its bureaus of 
markets and public roads study problems of packing, ship- 
ping, storing, and marketing; its office of farm manage- 
ment studies methods of farm accounting and farm admin- 
istration. In many of its bureaus professional women with 
scientific or other training are employed.^ 

Through its States Relations Service, established in 1914, 
the Department of Agriculture puts all its resources of or- 
ganization and expert information at the disposal of the 
states, and with them has built up a great system of county 
farm bureaus and county agricultural and home demonstra- 
tion agents. In spite of the dislocations of the war, it had 
by July, 1918, organized some counties in every state in 
the Union ; and in a number of states, such as Alabama, 
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, 
New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, a 
practically complete service of both men and women agents 
in every agricultural county. During the war additional 
women agents were appointed, some of them in urban cen- 
ters, to aid in food conservation. Since the war, these city 
agents have been reduced from 183 to 24, in spite of a 
demonstrated nee'd for their services. All along the line, in 
fact, reduced Congressional appropriations are crippling the 
important work of the States Relations Service. Between 
October, 1918, and October, 1919, the men's work was cur- 
tailed 9.6 per cent; the boys* and girls' club work, 25.2 per 
cent; the women's work, 38.9 per cent. The number of 
women in the state and county home demonstration service 
was reduced from 1,825 to 1,115. Meanwhile, lack of farm 
labor and cost of farm supplies are threatening a food short- 
age even more serious than that during the war. There is 
imperative need for expert agricultural assistance. 

This work is carried on jointly by the state agricultural 
colleges and the Department of Agriculture. Administration 
^See Chapter XVII. 



io6 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

and appointments to positions are in the hands of the states. 
Applications should be made tO' the Extension Divisions of 
the several state agricultural colleges. But these not infre- 
quently call upon Washington to recommend experienced 
workers. In so new and so extensive a system, there are 
many opportunities for constructive and experimental work. 
On the other hand, as in all government services, there is a 
certain amount of inelasticity and red tape and the ever- 
present danger of reduced federal and state appropria- 
tions. 

Some of the best trained women in the field of home 
economics have held positions in the States Relations Serv- 
ice, either as members of the central staff in Washington or 
in the field service of the states. The requirements in gen- 
eral are a college education with standard courses in home 
economics and appropriate experience and personality. The 
state agricultural colleges have given special attention to 
home economics training for women, and many of them 
have strong departments. But even in these colleges, there 
has been too great a separation between home economics 
and agriculture proper. There is an increase in the num- 
ber of women seeking training in agriculture ; and there 
seems no reason why women should not become at least 
assistant agricultural agents in county farm bureaus as well 
as home demonstration agents. But even in this capacity 
they should be able to foster the agricultural interests of 
farm women to a greater extent than they often do at 
present. 

There are opportunities for young women with good train- 
ing and some supervised field work to become county agents 
with little other experience. It seems desirable that the 
agricultural colleges should work out some system of prac- 
tice training for their women students in agriculture and 
home economics in connection with county farm bureaus. 
Such students might serve as assistants during the summer. 
State and district leaders need administrative and organizing 
ability of a high type, the spirit of educators, and a sympa- 
thetic and shrewd understanding of the rural populations 
among which they work. Where there are foreign ele- 
ments in these populations, they have a chance to develop 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 107 

a sound kind of Americanization work. There is likely to be 
increasing local participation and control in county agricul- 
tural work; and the experts concerned need a belief in the 
principles and practices of democratic leadership. The 
county is coming to be used as a satisfactory unit of ad- 
ministration in various movements for rural betterment, — 
education, health, recreation. Even in the New England 
States, where the town is the chief administrative unit, the 
county offers the chance for healthy competition among the 
smaller communities of which it is made up and an escape 
from local prejudices and jealousies. 

The county home demonstration agent works side by side 
with the county agricultural agent or agents, hitherto always 
men; but her special concern is with women and girls in 
farm homes, and with the various problems of rural house- 
hold management. She organizes and addresses clubs ; holds 
institutes ; prepares exhibits ; gives canning, cooking, sewing 
and textile demonstrations; encourages budget-making and 
thrift; helps toward the introduction of household conven- 
iences and laobr-saving methods of work. If she has agri- 
cultural training, she may also render assistance in those 
phases of farm life with which women are most closely 
concerned — gardening, poultry, small fruits, bee-keeping, 
certain aspects of dairying. She can hardly fail to deal 
with matters of home health, especially on the side of proper 
nutrition. She must be courageous, resourceful, generously 
human, and physically robust, as she has to go about the 
county in all kinds of weather, often by automobile. In 
many respects her work is like that of the rural public 
health nurse; and, in fact, in the country as in the city 
there should be close cooperation between home economics 
workers and public health workers. They both have to meet 
stubborn country prejudices as well as fine country self- 
respect and independence ; and they both learn perhaps quite 
as much as they teach. No one who does not like country 
life and country people should enter either service. 

The war-time experiment of city home demonstration 
agents under the States Relations Service was too brief and 
too exceptional to justify discussion here. But there seems 
a place w^aiting for an expert worker who should assist 



io8 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

city populations in advantageous purchasing and who should 
have back of her the various efforts of the Department of 
Agriculture and the states to improve storage and market- 
ing facilities and to establish direct connections between 
agricultural producers and city consumers. 

Of thirty state home demonstration leaders in the north 
and west, two are paid $i,8oo; two, $3,000; the majority 
about $2,500. The average for the thirteen state leaders in 
the south is probably somewhat lower. The salaries of 
assistant state leaders run from $1,500 to $2,750; of county 
home demonstration agents from $1,400 to $1,800 and occa- 
sionally to $2,500. Traveling expenses and maintenance 
while away from headquarters are also provided. Of six 
women filling our schedules in 1918, the assistant director of 
the extension division of a southern state, in charge of 
home demonstration work, received $2,500; the state home 
demonstration agent in a New England state, $1,600; the 
state director of girls' clubs in a New England state, only 
$1,200; one New England county home demonstration agent, 
$1,400; another, only $1,020, a war-emergency city home 
demonstration leader, $1,800. One has had work in an 
American and a foreign university ; one is a graduate of an 
eastern college with two years in home economics at Sim- 
mons and a year in dietetics at Teachers College; two are 
graduates of small colleges of good standing with a four 
years' course in home economics ; one is a graduate of a nor- 
mal school household arts department. 

A state leader thus sums up the duties, advantages and 
disadvantages of her work : *T organize and direct home 
economics work in the state; give lectures and demonstra- 
tions ; advise women ; and supervise city, county, and district 
workers. I have an assistant and nine other women working 
under my direction. The work has grown, and is most 
interesting. Do not enter it unless you like people and are 
willing to work. A person must be willing to have irregular 
hours, often traveling Sunday and evenings. Only a physi- 
cally strong person should attempt it. All of my education 
was needed as a background for my work. I would be better 
fitted if I could have had more training in English composi- 
tion. Some of my technical training was not correlated as 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 109 

closely as it should have been with the average standard of 
living." 



Farming and farm management as occupations for pro- 
fessional women are fields about which it is difficult to make 
authoritative statements. Conditions of farming vary great- 
ly in different parts of the country, and call for different 
investments of capital and different types of training. More- 
over in no occupation does success depend to a greater de- 
gree upon personal determination, persistence, and Hking. 
On the other hand, in no occupation is it easier to secure 
professional training and expert practical advice and assist- 
ance. Agricultural colleges, county farm bureaus, and the 
Department of Agriculture all stand ready to aid. Women 
with agricultural training may become independent farmers, 
or may hold salaried positions of various kinds. Farming is 
the one great industry of the country in which the small 
individual proprietor still has a place, and is likely to retain 
it. For the woman who seeks independence, likes country 
life, is not afraid of hard work and not easily discour- 
aged, there is a real business opportunity in farming, if she 
will go into it as seriously as into any other business. Like 
all independent enterprises, it requires some capital ; and at 
present the acute shortage of labor renders it particularly 
difficult for the woman farmer, since she cannot do as much 
of the hard work herself as a man can do, although there 
is not so great a discrepancy in this respect as was once 
assumed. Farming is not an occupation to be undertaken 
lightly, ignorantly, nor sentimentally. It calls for constant 
expert knowledge and the most careful cost accounting if it 
is to be made to yield even a moderate income. 

The 1 9 10 census reported 260,272 women as general or 
dairy farmers ; 7,834 women as gardeners, florists, and nurs- 
erymen. Probably most of them were carrying on family 
farms and comparatively few of them professionally trained 
in agriculture or horticulture. Over half were widowed or 
divorced. Since 1910, interest in country life has markedly 
increased ; and war-time undertakings have directed the at- 
tention of educated women to agriculture as a profession. 



no WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

The seasonal work of the Women's Land Army is being con- 
tinued by the American Land Service for both men and 
women, in the endeavor to meet the shortage of summer 
farm labor. The 1915 census of college women showed 
them in a wide variety of agricultural occupations, from 
general and truck farmers to cattle-raisers, orange growers, 
ranchers, Shetland pony breeders. The Women's Farm and 
Garden Association includes in its membership women in 
agriculture on a business basis. Since the war, it has been 
offering scholarships in agricultural colleges for young 
women with war-emergency agricultural experience. 

In 1915-1916 the Bureau of Education reported 5,682 
women in agricultural colleges ; 38,000 women in agricultural 
courses of all types, including short winter courses and sum- 
mer schools, as against 33,891 and 82,000 men respectively. 
Many of these women, however, were studying home 
economics, not agriculture, or, in the east, taking advantage 
of the only state-supported institution for higher education. 
In that year 135 women received first degrees in agriculture ; 
eight received higher degrees. Until recently, agricultural 
colleges have been indifferent to women students of agricul- 
ture proper. There are two small schools exclusively for 
women: the School of Horticulture at Ambler, Pennsyl- 
vania, and the School of Landscape Architecture and Horti- 
culture at Groton, Massachusetts. 

While buying and stocking a farm requires an initial in- 
vestment that yields no immediate return, this outlay need 
not be large. The new Federal Land Banks make long 
loans on easy terms to people genuinely interested in farm- 
ing; and it is not difficult to borrow money on farm real- 
estate. The essential thing for a woman going into farming 
as a profession is to study carefully the farming possibili- 
ties of her intended purchase and to know just what she 
intends to do with it. If she expects tO' farm on a rela- 
tively small scale, she will probably do well to specialize to a 
considerable extent but also to supplement her main crop or 
product. She needs to estimate what she can raise with 
profit, and to study her marketing facilities. The parcel- 
post and the increasing use of motor-truck transportation 
are constantly extending rural markets. If her farm is 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES iii 

pleasantly situated, and is near a city, a motor highway, or a 
college comniunity, she may often add to her earnings by 
maintaining a tea-room or taking people to board in the 
summer or over week-ends. If she is near a summer or 
suburban colony or hotel, she may make direct deliveries 
of vegetables, fruit, poultry, eggs, flowers, and so save costs 
of transportation and middlemen's charges. But these 
things must be definitely planned for. It is also highly im- 
portant to look carefully into the community and personal 
resources and opportunities of the neighborhood in which 
she is planning to buy a farm. In these days no professional 
woman has a right to go into farming who^ is not genuinely 
interested in country people and ready to throw in her lot 
with them without a tinge of patronage. As a property 
owner and tax payer she will have a chance to share in com- 
munity affairs and problems as she could never do if she 
represented some outside agency. In considering costs of 
operation and questions of labor, it is necessary to know 
the amount of cooperation among the farmers of the neigh- 
borhood. Is there rotation and perhaps joint ownership 
of expensive machinery, such as tractors, threshing machines, 
spraying apparatus ? Are motor-trucks ever owned in com- 
mon? Farmers in this country, especially in the east, are 
notoriously individualistic ; but various cooperative plans 
are being worked out. Rural cooperative societies, so suc- 
cessful in Denmark and Ireland, would aid both in the pur- 
chasing of farm supplies and the marketing of farm prod- 
ucts. There are possibilities of farming partnerships 
among professional women and of small groups of such 
women buying adjacent farms and sharing certain expenses 
and equipment. 

For neither men nor women with little capital is farm- 
ing a profession that commonly yields a large money re- 
turn. But investment and income in agricultural pursuits 
vary so widely that it is hardly safe to make general state- 
ments. A background of farm life and some actual farming 
experience in a salaried position are invaluable assets in 
addition to even the best professional training. The Leland 
Stanford Junior University bulletin on Vocational Informa- 
tion (1919) says: "When it comes to working one's own 



112 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

farm there are so many kinds of farming — truck gardening, 
grain farming, and poultry raising, all with prompt returns ; 
stock raising, which requires a relatively large investment 
unsecured by land ; and fruit growing, which requires a long 
wait — and so many scales on which one may farm, that it is 
simply impossible to fix a sum requisite for a safe beginning. 
A considerable initial investment without previous farm life 
would be a very doubtful asset. With farm experience one 
can safely go into business for himself with a very small 
capital by renting." Vocations for Business and Professional 
Wom^n says : "Few women have made fortunes ; many a 
bare living. An income of $i,ooo to $1,500 a year in addi- 
tion to living is as much as the average woman expects to 
get." An intensive study of opportunities in agriculture in 
Massachusetts for both men and women made in 1914 by 
the Women's Educational and Industrial Union ^ reveals 
financial and other difficulties as they existed before the 
war ; and presents a somewhat gloomy picture. It may well 
be read by those with roseate conceptions of the possi- 
bilities of farming. But in these days the prospect of even 
a "bare living" in addition to an assured home in healthful 
and beautiful surroundings, congenial and independent 
work, and neighborhood interests and affiliations, is making a 
powerful appeal to many courageous professional women. 

For women professionally trained in agriculture who are 
not willing or not ready to take up independent farming, 
there are a growing number and variety of salaried posi- 
tions. The teaching of agriculture in the schools has been 
greatly stimulated by the war and by the efforts of the 
Federal Board for Vocational Education, the School Gar- 
den Army of the United States Bureau of Education, the 
National War Garden Commission, and other agencies. The 
demand for trained teachers of agriculture, both men and 
women, exceeds the supply. This work is carried on in 
rural high schools, in agricultural vocational schools, and 
in the upper grades of rural elementary schools. The school- 
and-home-project method is increasingly used. It frequently 
involves the teaching of applied science and mathematics. 
Many cities and towns employ school-garden directors and 

^Vocations for the Trained Woman. Part 2 (1914). 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 113 

supervisors, who often combine this work with teaching. 
There is also a growing call for directors of community 
gardens under the auspices of civic or social organizations. 
Here a training in social work and in survey and exhibit 
methods is desirable in addition to agricultural training. 

Professionally trained women are finding increasing op- 
portunities as farm and garden managers. While the largest 
number of these openings are probably in institutions for 
delinquent or defective women and girls, they are also to 
be found in other institutions caring for women and chil- 
dren, in certain private schools for girls, in connection with 
industrial and commercial organizations, and on private 
estates and farms. The war accustomed employers to the 
idea of women in these posts. Certain women of training 
and experience have established themselves as farm or gar- 
den consultants. In some cases it is difficult to distinguish 
between the woman landscape architect or gardener and 
the woman agricultural consultant. But the first has to 
do with the planning and planting of an estate or garden 
in connection with the architect ; the second with the 
direction and supervision of continuous practical opera- 
tion. 

Institutional work requires an active and informed in- 
terest in the educational, correctional, and therapeutic ef- 
fects of farm and garden work and the ability to direct 
and control the groups of workers handled. It provides val- 
uable experience on both the agricultural and the human 
sides. Work in private schools or on private estates calls 
for special personal and social qualities. Several of the 
larger schools for girls now maintain farms both for sup- 
plying the school table and for the instruction and recreation 
of the students. Some of the positions on large private 
estates are highly specialized. The professional section 
of the United States Employment Service received a call 
for a "young woman skilled in poultry work both theo- 
retical and practical, who has had a course in poultry 
culture in some agricultural college ; for an estate where 
besides poultry there is a pheasantry with different kinds of 
pheasants. There are also pea-fowls, ducks, and bantams, 
and it is intended this year to add swans." A young woman 



114 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

was recommended who had had the required training and. 
experience as farm manager in a fashionable school for 
girls, so that she was presumably familiar with the ways of 
wealthy employers, if not with all the lordly birds men- 
tioned. Factories in the country are employing women to 
direct agricultural and garden work for their employees. 
Railroads maintain demonstration farms and gardens, as 
well as landscape gardening around their stations. 

Salaries in agricultural work vary according to the kind 
and amount of responsibility. Those paid in institutional 
work are low, seldom more than $1,200, or $1,500; but they 
include maintenance. The Federal Board's Opportunity 
Monograph on Farm Management as a Vocation says : *'The 
salary paid is proportionate to experience and efficiency and 
commensurate with that of other callings. It may be small 
at the start, but will increase with efficiency. Commonly 
farm managers and superintendents are receiving annually 
from $1,000 to $3,000, and on large estates often $4,000 or 
$5,000, with many perquisites, such as dwelling, garden 
and truck land, fuel, and the privilege of keeping a cow, 
pigs, or poultry. ... A farm boy, after two years at an 
agricultural college, took a foreman's position starting at 
$600 a year and perquisites ; the second year he received 
$900; then became manager at $1,800; and now receives 
$3,000. In five years he had quadrupled his income." 
These figures apply to men, but they furnish a useful stand- 
ard for women. 

Of six women in agriculture who filled our schedules, two 
are independent farmers, and make no statements regarding 
income. Four are salaried workers, of whom three report 
salaries ranging in 1918 from $900 and living to $1,200 
and living. One is a college graduate with a master's degree 
from a university college of agriculture ; one has had three 
years of college, a year at the Lowthorpe School, and short 
courses at a university college of agriculture. One is a 
Pratt Institute graduate with long agricultural experience ; 
one has studied at leading schools of art and design, and 
has had university courses in agriculture and in prison prob- 
lems. A New England dairy farmer has had special courses 
at her state agricultural college and at Simmons College, 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 115 

and has worked in private bacteriological and chemical lab- 
oratories. The other farmer manages a trans-Mississippi 
farm of twelve hundred acres devoted to grain and stock 
raising. A woman with experience in teaching and in super- 
vising agricultural work in a state reformatory for women 
and in the extension department of a university is manager 
of a farm in connection with a private school for girls ; an- 
other is farm manager at an institution for orphan girls ; 
another manages with her husband the demonstration farms 
of a railroad; another has been manager of a group of 
gardens at a well-known Atlantic coast summer colony, 
manager of a single estate, and is now a farm and garden 
consulting expert. 

The dairy farmer says : "I advise business and agricul- 
tural education following a good general education. A 
course in a business school is almost a necessity as a foun> 
dation." 

A farm manager says : "For best results, take practical 
farm training before studying at college. I have worked 
at institutional farm management since I first took a farm 
position, and have known many farm managers, both men 
and women, who have had some college experience and are 
utterly lost at the real work." 

The consulting gardener says : "When I had charge of an 
estate, I did some lecturing and consulting gardening work 
on the side, after hours and on hoHdays. By consulting gar- 
dening I mean that I was called upon sometimes to lay out a 
flower garden, sometimes to plant it, or to give advice and 
remedies on soils, plants, trees, shrubs, or on vegetables or 
forestry, or to advise on animals and poultry. I am some- 
times even asked to buy horses, cattle, and pigs for my 
clients. Anything coming under garden or farm work is 
included under my title of consulting gardener. A land- 
scape architect gave me my start in this work by giving me 
the care of six flower and vegetable gardens for a summer. 
Since that time, each person for whom I have worked has 
passed me on to their friends, so that I have had as much 
consulting work as I could do, along with my other work." 
The assistant director of a railroad agricultural development 
station says : "Our work includes practical market-garden, 



ii6 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

tree and bush fruit work, dairy, poultry, swine, forage, 
sugar-beets, nut-bearing, ornamental and shade trees, nurs- 
ery and vineyard work; practical investigations in market- 
ing and fertilization ; entertainment of practical and scientific 
agriculturists; advising and directing settlers; details of 
office and data-keeping ; lecturing. The business is not run 
for direct profit. It has trebled tonnage and increased 
population many fold." 



CHAPTER VII 

FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES : II 

While the dire events of the past few years have driven 
home the necessity of increased and less wasteful produc- 
tion in both agriculture and industry, they have at the same 
time revealed the extent to which these processes are hin- 
dered by unwise spending and low standards of health and 
education; and have made clear that the burden of waste 
and mismanagement of any kind falls ultimately upon the 
consuming group, to which everybody belongs. Hence we 
are facing a period of unprecedented attention to the prob- 
lems of distribution and consumption in the interests of 
human welfare and productive efficiency. Practices begun 
because of patriotism are continuing because of the forty- 
three cent dollar ; and we are beginning to reaHze that many 
of our old ways of living are not only economically but also 
psychologically obsolete. The old-fashioned houseworker 
who "lives in" is being replaced by the worker by the day 
or hour; arrangements for group living and group feeding 
are being enormously extended ; new systems of wholesale 
and retail buying of food, clothing, and household supplies 
are being put into operation ; household practices and costs 
are being studied almost as thoroughly as factory or office 
practices and costs.^ There is a new science of individual 
and group budget-making. A movement is well advanced 
to have textiles and clothing legally tested and labeled in the 
same way as food and food products. Cleaning, renovating, 
and salvaging are becoming scientifically and cooperatively 
organized. All sorts of specialized "food and living serv- 
ices" are appearing. 

^ A conference on "Group Living" held at Lake Placid, N. Y., in 
May, 1920, discussed many of these matters. 

117 



ii8 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Under these circumstances, so-called home economics and 
household arts workers assume a position of new and large 
importance, and require a thorough professional training of 
a kind not yet fully available, although it is being actively 
considered. Experts are emerging who are specialists in 
the many aspects of improved Hving conditions ; and the pro- 
fessional training of to-morrow must provide for these 
specializations on a sound common foundation. A profes- 
sion is developing with as many subdivisions as the engi- 
neering profession. Even the terms hitherto used are up 
for criticism and revision. "Home economics worker" is 
obviously inadequate, and is compromised by old preju- 
dices; ''dietitian" is under fire as too loosely used and too 
narrow in its proper sense; "visiting housekeeper" is repu- 
diated as failing to distinguish the professional from the 
non-professional worker. "Nutrition worker," "food ex- 
pert," and "living conditions expert" appear to be coming 
into favor; but there is no agreement upon a general term. 
Perhaps we shall be obliged to fall back upon Mrs. Ellen 
Swallow Richards's "euthenics," the science of right living 
or right environments, and shall come to speak of "euthenics 
workers." 

Whatever their future designation, professional workers 
upon problems of food and living are called upon to-day for 
a broader knowledge of economic and social conditions and 
a firmer grasp of business administration and "personnel 
management" than they have hitherto possessed. They 
must work in closer relations with the nutrition chemist and 
other research experts. They must know the correlations 
of income and health ; the food and housing conditions and 
customs of various racial and occupational groups in both 
city and country ; the facilities for purchasing and saving of 
these groups — cooperative buying, mail-order buying, sav- 
ings banks, credit unions, government thrift stamps ; they 
must apply modern methods of budget-making, cost ac- 
counting, and salvaging to the living requirements of various 
income groups. And they must have common sense and a 
knack of getting on with all sorts and conditions of "folks." 
This is a large program, combining training in applied 
science and psychology, social economics, and business ad- 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 119 

ministration, and requiring constant cooperation with doc- 
tors, public health nurses, social and civic workers, public 
officials, employers, employees, and public groups. 

While all professional ''home economics" workers are in- 
directly teachers of better modes of living, they may be 
grouped as follows: (i) Teachers proper in colleges, schools, 
other institutions and organizations; (2) consulting and 
other experts in budget-making, nutrition, textiles, household 
appliances and practices, under the auspices of hospitals, 
clinics, health centers, social and civic agencies, banks, gov- 
ernment services, consulting firms; (3) directors and man- 
agers of group food and living services on a non-commercial 
or cost basis: (a) residential — colleges, schools, hospitals, 
reformatories, etc.; (b) non-residential — lunch-rooms and 
cafeterias in day schools. Christian Associations, government 
services, social organizations, for employees in factories 
and commercial estabHshments, for cooperative neighbor- 
hood groups ; (4) directors and managers of group food and 
living services on a commercial or profit-making basis — 
hotels, boarding-houses, clubs, restaurants, cafes, lunch and 
tea rooms, cafeterias, catering and cooked-food services ; (5) 
other commercial workers — advertising workers, sales and 
demonstration managers, purchasing agents, buyers, mer- 
chandise managers ; (6) journalists, editors, and publicity 
workers on newspapers, magazines, trade journals, house 
organs; (7) research workers, investigators, information 
workers.^ 

Teachers are still the most numerous group of workers in 
the ''home economics" field, and those with thorough train- 
ing of the modern type are in great demand. The Federal 
Board for Vocational Education exists partly to further 
preparation in this subject, and cooperates with directors of 
teacher training and supervisors appointed in practically 
every state. Public schools — elementary, secondary, and vo- 

*For a detailed study of women in this field see Opportunities for 
Women in Domestic Science. Vocations for the Trained Woman. 
Part 3. (1916). For more recent information, see Melissa F. Sny- 
der. Possibilities in Home Economics Work. American Journal 
of Home Economics. April, 1920. This is based on an inquiry made 
bv the Office of Home Economics of the U. S. Department of Agri- 
culture. 



I20 



^OMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 



cational — offer the largest number of opportunities, although 
there are also positions in private schools. In high schools, 
teachers of home economics frequently manage the cafeteria 
or lunch-room, which also provides practice work for stu- 
dents. Universities, colleges, agricultural colleges, higher 
vocational institutions of other sorts, and normal schools are 
broadening the scope of instruction along these Hues, and 
are looking for teachers of the highest professional equip- 
ment, who can work out successful programs of academic 
training combined with supervised field and practice work. 
Cooperative training arrangements with commercial and 
non-commercial institutions — hotels, restaurants, hospitals, 
colleges, and schools — might well be devised along lines 
already laid down in recent training for industrial and com- 
mercial management, retail selling, and the like. Closer rela- 
tions between schools of home economics and schools of 
business administration are greatly needed. Teachers are 
required for classes under the auspices of social settlements, 
Young Women's Christian Associations, Girl Scout troops, 
and other social and civic agencies. Some experience in 
teaching is a valuable asset for every worker in this field. 
For those who are really qualified, teaching has never 
offered so fine an opportunity for constructive service in 
many directions. 

Consulting experts and field agents are a group of work- 
ers in food and living services practically developed during 
the war. The activities of the county home demonstration 
agents of the States Relations Service of the Department 
of Agriculture have already been described. But every- 
where there is a new realization of the intimate relations 
between nutrition, health, social welfare, and thrift. Home 
economics workers, social workers, and public health nurses 
are attacking their problems in cooperation. Plans for 
health centers include the establishment of nutrition clinics 
and food and household information services. An associa- 
tion has been formed in Boston for organizing nutrition 
clinics for delicate children. A Dietetic Bureau has been 
established in the same city. Brookline, Massachusetts, has 
a town dietitian. The first bulletin of the federal Children's 
Bureau's "Children's Year Follow-up Series" is entitled: 



I 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 121 

"What Is Malnutrition ?" The Social Work Committee of 
the American Home Economics Association formulated in 
1 91 9 a statement of the relations between home economics 
and social work, recommending some home economics in- 
struction in schools of social work; home economics staff 
experts and family case workers or visitors in social case 
work agencies; the extension of group instruction in home- 
making adjustments through home demonstration agents and 
schools; a>nd the establishment of a larger number of cen- 
ters for home economics advising in matters of budget, diet, 
clothing, and so on. At the second annual meeting in Sep- 
tember, 1919, of the American Dietetic Association, pro- 
posals were drawn up for social service dietitians for com- 
munity and public health work and for medical social 
service dietitians to cooperate with medical social workers 
in the dietary care of out-patients or patients just discharged 
from hospitals. It was suggested that training programs be^ 
developed jointly by schools of home economics, schools of 
social work, and hospitals, with provision for adequate prac- 
tice work. The California Home Teacher Act of 1915 pro- 
vides for a home economics visiting instructor for non- 
English speaking mothers of school children. Charity Or- 
ganization Societies employ visiting nutrition, clothing, and 
budget experts, and are advocating neighborhood group in- 
struction rather than the slow and costly method of instruct- 
ing only individual famihes.^ It is coming to be seen that 
expert food and living services of this character should not 
be limited to families and neighborhoods of depressed 
economic standards or to the cases of any one society, but 
should be available for all members of a community and so 
organized on an independent or public basis. This is one of 
the great merits of the States Relations Service. Visiting 
nurse associations, dispensaries and clinics find many ad- 
vantages in charging small fees for their services, waiving 
them when necessary.^ Food and living visitors and 

^See Florence Nesbitt, Household Management (1918) ; Emma A. 
Winslow, Budget Planning in Social Case Wor'k (Pamphlet, 1919) ; 
Chicago Standard Budget for Dependent Families (Pamphlet, 
1919). 

^ See Michael M. Davis and Andrew R. Warner. Dispensaries: 
Their Management and Development (1918), Chapter 5. 



122 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

bureaus might well do likewise. This is done as yet only 
by independent practitioners or firms. 

An outcome of the liberty loan and thrift campaigns of 
the war period, largely carried on through the banks, is 
the extension of the experiment first made by the Cleve- 
land Society for Savings of employing a home economics 
expert as adviser to depositors in all matters of home in- 
come, budget, and expenditure. Other banks followed this 
example ; and the United States Treasury Department em- 
ployed some of the leading workers in the field in or- 
ganizing its savings campaign. The New England District 
of the Federal Reserve Bank has organized a staff of home- 
economics consultants. The savings bank section of the 
American Bankers' Association recently appointed a com- 
mittee on the subject, and has issued the following state- 
ment: "The family group as the economic unit for saving 
and thrift, rather than the individual depositors in the sav- 
ings banks, is the basis for certain new phases of savings 
banking. . . . Considerable experience is now available in 
savings banks of Cleveland and Pittsburgh, where calls for 
information on home economics are averaging over one hun- 
dred per week in each city. In Maine an expert is operating 
under the auspices of the State Chamber of Commerce and 
the Agricultural League, being at each of the cooperating 
banks during two days of each month. . . . Aside from 
their strictly business features, the savings banks have cer- 
tain public service aspects which now are being emphasized. 
We may refei; to the promotion of school savings, the de- 
velopment of savings systems in industrial plants, and the 
further expansion of work in home economics. ... It is the 
purpose of the savings banks section to develop the work 
in home economics by its member institutions, both active 
and associate. The section has the assurance of hearty co- 
operation from all parts of the country." The social bear- 
ings of this work, especially with aliens, is obvious. 

Another large group of women are concerned with the 
direction of food and living services in public or semi-public 
institutions of a non-commercial type, — universities, col- 
leges, and schools ; hospitals and sanitariums ; institutions 
for delinquents, dependents, and defectives. They are called 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 123 

institutional managers, housekeepers, or matrons. Their 
work commonly involves the hiring and direction of house- 
hold staffs ; the supervision and distribution of supplies, fre- 
quently the purchasing of such supplies ; accounting ; plan- 
ning of meals ; and similar services. Such positions vary 
from those requiring a high type of professional equipment 
to those where personal and social qualities are considered 
of major importance, or where practical experience in man- 
aging a household is all that is necessary. This lack of 
standardization means frequent lack of professional recog- 
nition and professional group spirit. 

In the eastern colleges for women, posts as heads of resi- 
de^nce halls depend for the most part upon personal and 
educational qualifications rather than upon training ; and are 
not professional home-economics* positions. There is an op- 
portunity for the residential colleges to study more system- 
atically than has yet been done the educational and health 
bearings of their living arrangements and to appoint as 
director of living conditions a professional woman of the 
highest type who should rank as a member of the faculty 
and should cooperate actively with the departments of 
health, economics, and the sciences, preferably giving some 
instruction or supervising practice work. Perhaps some 
alumnae association or graduate will endow such a post. 
The idea has been discussed in various quarters, and cer- 
tain institutions are approximating it in practice. The 
twelve government residence halls for women workers in 
Washington, completed since the* close of the war and filled 
to capacity, are a striking example of modern planning and 
operation.^ Teachers College of Columbia University has 
under consideration the establishment of a Bureau of In- 
stitution Research similar to the Harvard Bureau of Busi- 
ness Research.^ A bureau of consultation for hospitals and 
other institutions has been organized in New York City 
by an expert in this field. 

A recognized group of home economics workers are the 
dietitians, trained in the food modifications necessary in ill- 

^ Monthly Labor Review. October, 1919. Report U. S. Housing 
Corporation, Vol. II (1919). 
' Teachers College Bulletin. December, 1919. 



124 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

ness of different kinds, at different ages, and under any spe- 
cial organic conditions. Hitherto, they have been most com- 
monly attached to hospitals or to institutions under medical 
supervision. Many hospitals receive v^omen with home 
economics training as pupil dietitians for a three months' 
course, furnishing living and sometimes an apprentice v^^age. 
Hospital dietitians direct the preparation of special diets 
ordered by physicians in charge of patients, and often con- 
duct classes for pupil nurses in elementary dietetics and 
dietetic cooking, using the hospital diet kitchen as a labora- 
tory. At present, the equipment and professional status 
of dietitians are unstandardized and unsatisfactory; and 
the line betvv^een them and institutional managers is often 
hard to draw. Their duties are not infrequently limited 
to the routine preparing of menus for the entire hospital 
population. With the establishment of health and nutrition 
centers and other consulting food services, they are begin- 
ning to receive more definite and adequate professional 
training as nutrition workers. Instruction in the elements 
of dietetics and of the chemistry of food and nutrition is, 
indeed, an essential part of all professional preparation in 
''home economics," and must make constantly available 
in practice the conclusions of research workers in these 
fields. 

Quantity- feeding undertakings during the war, both in 
canteen services overseas and in governmental, industrial, 
and social organizations in this country, have given a com- 
mand of new techniques in group feeding and a grasp of 
its problems which are standing us in good stead in these 
days of high costs and the practical disappearance of 
domestic service of the old type. The enforcement of pro- 
hibition creates a demand for attention on a national scale 
to problems of better food and nutrition as well as to prob- 
lems of recreation. It enlists commercial purveyors of 
food — hotels, restaurants, cafes — as never before the side of 
improved methods of preparing and serving food. We are 
entering upon a new period in food and living services, 
and satisfactory results will be attained only through the 
combined efforts of scientific, business, and social experts. 
Even the ''new psychologists" will have a hand, since do- 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 125 

mestic "folkways" are among the most stubborn and diffi- 
cult to alter. 

Cafeteria service, originating in the west, has won uni- 
versal acceptance, and its techniques are being constantly 
improved Young Women's Christian Associations ^ through- 
out the country were pioneers in its adoption, and provide 
institutes and training courses for their cafeteria managers. 
Everywhere industrial firms are introducing cafeterias for 
workers in their plants and offices ; and department stores, 
insurance and public utiHty companies, banks, and other 
large corporations are doing likewise. The great Statler- 
hotels from New York to Saint Louis are establishing this 
service for their employees under the direction of pro- 
fessionally trained women. 

A pressing group of problems is connected with the pro- 
vision of satisfactory food and living service in individual 
city families, formerly supplied with domestic servants 
and invincibly attached to meals at home. Although the 
costs of commodities and labor will undoubtedly become 
more stable, there seems little likelihood that the family 
formerly employing one or two servants will be able to re- 
turn to its old mode of living. In large and expensive 
establishments the change is less marked, although they 
will probably be administered more scientifically. City 
homes at a lower income level furnish the even more diffi- 
cult problem of a better household food service than that 
afforded by the corner grocery and the neighborhood deli- 
catessen shop. Various efforts have been made to establish 
satisfactory cooked-food services both at cost and at a profit : 
but they are still experimental and only partially successful. 

The solution appears to be along the lines of neighbor- 
hood service stations adapted to various types of com- 
munity, with provision for serving meals on the spot and 
also for sending them out to families within a limited 
area. Such a station might also supply workers by the day 
or by the hour or job, rotating on a circuit of households, 
as laundresses, cleaning women, and furnace-men now do. 
It might be equipped with laundry, vacuum cleaners, and 

^ In 1920-1921 they maintained 256 cafeterias, and employed 317 
trained workers. 



126 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

other renovating facilities; and provide rooms, cafeteria 
meals, and training courses for workers who desired them. 
The plan of "home assistants," ^ who shall have meals and 
rooms outside of the employer's house, and be paid on the 
basis of an eight-hour day and a forty-four hour week, 
is a step in this direction, and needs some such center 
for its proper operation. A service-station of this sort 
would require thoroughly enhghtened and professional man- 
agement. In the meantime, women of moderate income and 
average education who have been accustomed to keep house 
with servants but are now obliged to do their own work 
need the services of professional consultants and reorganiza- 
tion and simplification of their household procedures quite 
as much as do women of lower incomes. 

An American Cooked Food Service, delivering complete 
hot meals in containers to individual families, has been 
tried out in several citiec, but seems unable to meet the 
difficulty that people all want their meals at the same time, 
making the cost of delivery prohibitive. Other towns and 
cities are experimenting with community kitchens and 
dining-rooms, each family providing its own table furnish- 
ings. Some of these have been in successful operation for 
a number of years. A valuable bulletin entitled Agencies 
for the Sale of Cooked Foods without Profit was issued 
by the government in 1919.^ It describes undertakings of 
this sqrt in Europe and the United States, and pays tribute 
to the piocieer work of the New England Kitchen and the 
Women's- Educational and Industrial Union. 

The hcmsehold difficulties of this period of readjustment, 
the restlessness engendered by the war, and the growing 
buXk of travel are leading to a notable increase in apartment 
house and hotel life and to the presence of large numbers 
of transient or unattached persons in every urban center. 
Commercial provisions for this state of affairs — hotels, 
restaurants, lunch rooms — are developing by leaps and 
bounds. Great hotel systems are being established. Chain 

* See pamphlet The Homk Assistant. Central Branch Y. W. C. A. 
(1920). 

^ Iva L*. Peters. Department of Food Production and Home Eco- 
nomics. Women's Committee, Council of National Defense. 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 127 

restaurants are as common as chain stores. A great special- 
izjd business of selling food and giving services is arising, 
and is bound to become as standardized and efficient as 
any other type of industrial or commercial ^terprise. 
Hitherto, however, the great hotel interests have been rather 
notably conservative in certain aspects of management. They 
are still far behind the more progressive industries w^ith 
respect to organizing modern personnel departments, re- 
search bureaus, and systems of apprenticeship and promo- 
tion for young professional men and women who' are look- 
ing forward to managerial positions and wish to learn the 
hotel business from the bottom up. They retain a lingering 
suspicion of college trained men, and are still skeptical and 
surprised at the suggestion of employing college trained 
women. Rumor has it, however, that certain hotel interests 
favor the expansion of the Department of Home Economics 
at Cornell University into a School of Home Economics, 
coordinate with the School of Agriculture. At least one 
large hotel in New York employs a scientifically trained 
woman as food and storage inspector, and has supplied her 
with a laboratory. It has a special women's floor managed 
by a woman with a professional conception of hotel service. 
The Statler group of hotels are employing professional 
women to manage their food service for employees; and 
are enthusiastic over the results. Another large New York 
group has had a woman employment manager. A woman 
is buyer* for the candy stores of another group ; and the 
manager thinks women would be successful in other kinds 
of hotel buying. A woman is traveling auditor for a group 
of hotel restaurants. Another assists in the publicity and 
promotion department, and edits a daily sheet of hotel news. 
In fact, women are not infrequently employed in this type 
of hotel work. In the housekeeping departments, profes- 
sional women are seldom found, those in managerial posi- 
tions commonly rising from the ranks. A manager received 
with interest the suggestion that an expert in textiles would 
be of value. While professional women here and there are 
successfully managing summer hotels and small residential 
or apartment hotels, the large modern city hotel is still 
practically unexplored territory. But all signs point to its 



128 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

occupation in the near future, if women will be prepared 
to learn the business as men learn it. 

Women are already successfully managing restaurants 
and lunch rooms for customers in department stores. The 
New York Times recently carried an advertisement for a 
woman manager at a salary of at least $5,000 for an out 
of town store. A woman is manager of a well-known res- 
taurant for men in the financial district in New York, and 
a college woman has owned and operated one successfully 
in Boston. Women have carried on large catering estab- 
lishments, and they have run innumerable lunch and tea 
rooms, some of them professionally* managed. The food 
shop and lunch rooms of the Women's Educational and 
Industrial Union in Boston have long demonstrated that 
such enterprises may be both scientifically and profitably 
conducted. 

A commercial field calling for women trained in "home 
economics" is the advertising and wholesale selling of food 
products and household goods and appliances. Some of 
the large packing companies and other food manufacturers 
maintain "domestic science" departments in charge of ex- 
perts who conduct information services, issue booklets of 
recipes and instructions, carry on correspondence courses, 
and direct demonstration sales-agents. A recent example 
is the California Packing Corporation, which announces the 
establishment of the "Del Monte Domestic Science Depart- 
ment" with a series of lesson leaflets for the use of schools. 
Women played a considerable part in the famous "battle of 
the baking-powders." Producers of household goods and 
textiles are inaugurating similar advertising services. Pro- 
fessional women have not hitherto gone to any extent into 
"outside selling," but with the growth of professional train- 
ing and standards in salesmanship it offers an opportunity 
to those with business aptitude and acquaintance with both 
the manufacturing and the consuming ends of food and 
household products. A woman familiar through long resi- 
dence in China with certain fibers found only in that country 
was recently employed at a high salary by an importing 
house to sell this product to manufacturers. 

There is also an undeveloped field for women in whole- 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 129 

sale buying. Professional women with training and experi- 
ence along these lines may before long find an opportunity 
to combine their business and social interests in the em- 
ployment of the cooperative societies which are so rapidly 
developing in this country. 

Another form of commercial "home economics" work is 
found in journalistic or editorial positions with household 
magazines, household departments in newspapers, or ap- 
propriate trade journals. The food and thrift campaigns 
of the war greatly stimulated the demand for authentic 
information. Some of this work is done as "special writ- 
ing" on a space basis rather than on a salary. It pays 
well. The editors of certain "women's magazines" are 
among the most highly paid professional women. 

Investigation of conditions affecting standards of food 
and living and research into their problems are carried on 
by the Department of Agriculture, and toi some extent by 
the Federal Board for Vocational Education. On the eco- 
nomic side, the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes an im- 
portant contribution through its cost of living and wage 
studies and through its monthly index numbers of the prices 
of food and other household commodities. Its recent min- 
imal budgets for government clerical workers, meager as they 
are, are practically the only non-industrial budgets avail- 
able,^ and furnish a useful basis of comparison in the process 
of revising clerical and professional salaries, now going on 
everywhere. The new Minimum Wage Board of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia has also made an important and much 
needed study of the wages of hotel workers, in Washing- 
ton, and has established a minimum living wage with a 
money equivalent for room and meals.^ State minimum 
wage boards and state departments of labor are making 
similar useful studies. Research is also carried on by uni- 

J* Quantity and Cost Budgiet Necessary to Maintain a Family of 
r^ive in Washington, D. C. Monthly Labor Reviezv. December, 
1919. Quantity-Cost Budget Necessary to Maintain a Single Man 
or Woman in Washington, D. C. Monthly Labor Review. Janu- 
ary, 1920. 

' Qara E. Mortenson. Minimum Wage for Women in Hotels 
and Restaurants in the District of Columbia. Monthly Labor Re- 
view. March, 1920. 



130 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

versities, agricultural colleges, and experiment stations ; by 
endowed nutrition laboratories ; by industrial research 
bureaus.^ In a number of cities and a few states women 
are serving as official food and market inspectors. In some 
cities, organizations such as women's city clubs and wo- 
men's municipal leagues carry on supplementary or "follow- 
up" inspections. New York City has a woman deputy 
commissioner of markets who is a consultant in home 
economies. 

Employment in these many types of food and living 
service is secured through institutions giving professional 
training; through civil service examinations; through bu- 
reaus of occupations ; through direct application to health, 
social, and civic agencies, industrial and commercial firms ; 
sometimes through professional associations or journals. 

Sixteen "home economics" workers filled our schedules, 
of whom eleven reported salaries ranging from $T,200 to 
$4,500, with a median salary of $1,800.^ Twenty women in 
charge of college halls of residence also replied; but their 
duties are social and practical rather than professional. 
Their salaries ranged from $500 to $1,300 in addition to 
maintenance. Three of the sixteen are teachers. One has 
recently organized a home-economics department in a state 
university, and is in charge with the. rank of associate 
professor. She is an authority on textiles. A second is 
instructor in textiles and clothing in another state university, 
supervising laboratory work in the chemistry of textiles. 
A third is teacher of science as applied to home economics 
in the post-graduate department of a large private school 
for girls. One is superintendent of the dining-service in a 
leading technological institute for men. Another is director 
of school luncheons in an organization supplying this service 
to nineteen city high schools and normal schools. Two are 
with the Young Women's Christian Association. Three 
are in commercial food services, one as manager of the 

* See Food of Working Women in Boston. Studies in Economic 
Relations of Women. Volume X. Women's Educational and Indus- 
trial Union. (i9i7-) 

^ See Melissa F. Snyder. Possibilities in Home Economics Work. 
Journal of Home Economics. April, 1920. 



FOOD AND LIVING SERVICES 131 

employees' lunch-room in a great department store ; another 
as manager of food service for both customers and em- 
ployees in one of the largest department stores in the coun- 
try; a third as manager of a restaurant in a metropolitan 
office building. One is manager of the food-service adver- 
tising and demonstration department in a great chemical 
corporation. Three are in executive and research positions 
in the federal government. Two are consultants in home 
economics. Ten of these women are college graduates with 
professional training in home economics ; three have the 
master's degree ; others have done graduate work in food 
and nutrition chemistry and dietetics. Three are gradu- 
ates of Pratt Institute. Several others have had special 
work at Simmons, Teachers College, the University of Chi- 
cago. 

A teacher says : *'Get thorough science training and lots 
of economics, in both cases straight unmodified university 
courses. Specialize on top of this, but not at the sacrifice 
of either. I became interested in home economics from the 
economics standpoint. I have had to feel my way. I was 
sidetracked for several years by the fact that I attended 

College for a year, and was there told that home 

economics had no cultural value. It took me some time 
to see its real value again." 

The director of school lunches says : "Get as broad train- 
ing as possible — science, economics, sociology, specializing 
the last two years in home economics and making the most 
of every opportunity in practical work. Be willing to 
take a position with small salary at first, if in a well-man- 
aged organization." 

A graduate in home economics in charge of a depart- 
ment store lunch-room says : "Get a little practical experi- 
ence before you begin to study. I wish I had had far 
more practice work even at the expense of theory." 

The manager of an institutional dining-service says : 
"Train well in business and financial details and in organiza- 
tion. Dietetics is secondary. You need an understanding 
of general economic conditions, of how to handle human 
nature, tact, impartiality, firmness." 

The manager of the food department in a manufacturing 



132 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

corporation says : ''Do not ask favors. Do work in which 
you are interested conscientiously. See where you can 
help the whole organization by putting aside personalities 
... I employ and direct women for advertising and sales 
work ; edit booklets, recipes, advertising copy, and so forth ; 
go on diplomatic missions to various cities and people, etc., 
etc." 

An editorial and administrative worker in the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture says : "In my opinion the next most 
important developments in research along lines of home 
economics will be in the general economics of consumption 
and the chemistry and physics of the materials used in 
clothing and household equipment. At the same time posi- 
tions in institutional management dietetics and the commer- 
cial preparation of food will increase in number and in 
the amount of salary paid. Home economics advisers for 
banks, industrial and social-welfare organizations may also 
become more numerous." 

Another federal executive says: "Specialized positions 
such as mine need technical home economics training com- 
bined with teaching experience and executive and adminis- 
trative ability. I make recommendations to the chief of 
the division as to matters of principle and policy involved 
in carrying out the work of home economics education 
throughout the states. I prepare matter for consideration 
by the staff conferences, and work out with the federal 
agents plans for the work of the agents in the field and 
at the home office. I find the most helpful thing in my 
professional training the research work which developed 
the initiative to work independently at a problem." 



CHAPTER VIII 

COMMUNITY, CIVIC, AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 

During the war practically all communities in the United 
States developed a new civic consciousness and new civic 
resources and techniques. They took stock of themselves 
with respect to their men of draft age, their remaining labor- 
supply, their industrial or agricultural production, their 
food, their health, their contributions to war loans and 
war "drives" of various kinds. Through systems of quotas, 
percentages, and zones, they learned to compare themselves 
with other communities and other sections of the country. 
They became units of national organizations through Red 
Cross chapters, community councils, community labor- 
boards of the United States Employment Service, local 
undertakings of the War-Camp Community Service. 
They looked with new eyes upon existing local provisions 
for community betterment, devised plans for their closer 
cooperation, and raised "war-chests" for their support. 
Much of this activity was spontaneous; but much of it 
was instigated from above, and there was undoubtedly an 
excess of hastily organized "supervision." 

Natural reactions from high-tension effort and an all too 
effective publicity must not blind us to the solid and per- 
manent gains from the war period. Communities have 
learned to take a cross-section view of their interests and 
activities, to work out programs for joint action, to call 
upon federal and national agencies for information and 
advice and upon experts of various kinds for practical 
leadership. They have come to recognize that social and 
economic maladjustments are not the exclusive concern of 
a group of people known as "social workers," to be dealt 
with through private or public philanthropy, but the con- 
cern and responsibility of citizens as a whole. 

Active interest in community and civic matters is by 

133 



134 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

no means altogether a product of the war. For a number 
of years there have been associations of citizens concerned 
with one aspect or another of local public welfare — better 
local government, better schools, better housing, industrial 
and commercial development, improved city planning, more 
parks and playgrounds, higher standards of commercial 
recreation. Civic federations, city clubs, municipal leagues, 
citizen's unions, chambers of commerce, boards of trade, 
public education associations, and so on, have devoted them- 
selves to one or more of these causes ; have prodded and 
exposed slothful, ignorant, or dishonest city governments, 
supported demonstrations of better methods, backed pro- 
gressive city ordinances and state laws, and seen to it that 
they were enforced. In general, they have been, perhaps, 
more ready to work for the community than with and 
through the community; and have been made up for the 
most part of leading citizens in business and the professions 
and of women of leisure and public spirit. The work of 
their voluntary committees has been increasingly directed 
by professional executive secretaries, and they have fre- 
quently employed experts to make surveys and prepare 
reports. 

Another type of community action is to be found in the 
federations of social agencies which have been established 
to provide opportunities for conference among different 
groups of workers and to encourage a comprehensive rather 
than a piecemeal attack upon local social problems. Some 
of these federations, as in Cleveland, began before the war 
to raise a single fund for all social purposes, and thus fur- 
nished a model for the war-chests and community chests 
that are now so prevalent. Such federations have edu- 
cated social workers in the community aspects and bear- 
ings of their own problems ; have brought home to the com- 
munity as a whole its social assets and liabilities; and 
have furthered mutual understanding between the business 
and the humanitarian groups. Central councils of social 
agencies, undertaking administration, are rarer, and less 
universally approved.^ 

^ See Francis H. McLean. The Central Council of Social Agen- 
cies (Pamphlet, 1920). 



I 



CIVIC AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 135 

In all movements for civic betterment women have played 
an active part, at first through v^omen's clubs and more 
recently through women's municipal leagues, women's city 
clubs, and the like. Many of these organizations have sal- 
aried civic secretaries. The long struggle for the franchise 
has been an invaluable education to women in public poli- 
cies and procedures ; and local suffrage organizations have 
identified themselves with enlightened civic movements and 
enlightened state legislation. Through their work for 
suffrage, women have learned the advantages of efficient 
organization, of concentration upon definite programs, and 
of persistence in campaigns of education and publicity in 
spite of rebuffs and discouragement. A large body of 
women, many of them in active professional life, enter 
upon full citizenship with valuable experience in dealing 
with legislatures and public officials and with a unique 
insight into the workings of the two main political parties. 
The new element in the electorate is already providing for 
its own further education — and that of others — through 
state and national Leagues of Women Voters, and promises 
a substantial contribution of fresh thinking and uncom- 
mitted action to the work of political reorganization now 
facing the country. 

In political matters it is to be hoped that men and women 
will learn as soon as possible to work together as citizens. 
But it must be admitted that for the present women form a 
distinct and in large measure politically inexperienced group. 
No other large body of voters contains so many members 
who are not ''gainfully employed." Professional women 
with understanding of political principles and practices and 
their bearing upon civic welfare and progress, and with an 
ability to secure the cooperation of various groups, are 
already in demand as political organizers and campaign 
managers, directors of political education, research and 
publicity workers in the political field. They are working 
in connection with political parties, old and new, and with 
men as well as with women voters. Such women require 
special preparation through courses in political science and 
government and through field training and experience with 
civic and political organizations. Some of the Leagues of 



136 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Women Voters are providing intensive courses for leaders. 
As yet, this sort of work grows out of other professional 
experience, and hardly offers the prospect of an independent 
professional career. 

Professional women, however, need to face their new 
])o]itical opportunities and obligations more fully than they 
have sometimes faced their civic responsibilities in the past. 
They have not infrequently been so much engrossed in 
their own work and in establishing their own professional 
status that they have left the direction of these matters 
to untrained women and then have wondered why they 
were carried on so ineffectually. They should not only 
occupy the paid executive and expert posts just described, 
but should actively seek positions, paid and unpaid, on 
public boards and commissions, and should stand as can- 
didates for public office. In the equal suffrage states of the 
west, women have already been elected to various positions. 
The offices of state and county superintendent of schools 
seem to be especially reserved for them; and they have 
served as members of state legislatures, as justices of 
the peace, overseers of the poor, and so on. But in the 
future women throughout the country will undoubtedly hold 
a much wider range of offices, and will seek election to city 
councils, state legislatures, and the Congress of the United 
States, of which two women have already been members. 
The next few years will see an unprecedented body of social 
and economic legislation, and the views of enlightened 
women will be needed in the shaping of laws dealing with 
human relations and human satisfactions. 

In both suffrage and non-suffrage states women have to 
some extent served on state boards of education, health, 
charities, labor and industries. They have been more fre- 
quently appointed to the newer industrial and welfare com- 
missions, minimum wage boards, bureaus of women and 
children in industry, and the like. The Department of 
Labor lists thirty-three women who are members or paid 
executives of state or federal industrial and labor services. 
Women are executive secretaries or directors of five west- 
ern industrial welfare commissions ; of at least three mini- 
mum wage boards ; of eleven departments concerned with 



CIVIC AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 137 

women and children. The chief industrial statisticians in 
New Jersey and Wisconsin are women. Three women 
head federal services — Miss Julia Lathrop, chief of the 
Children's Bureau, Miss Mary Anderson, director of the 
new Women's Bureau, both in the Department of Labor: 
Mrs. Frances Axtell, chairman of the United States Em- 
ployees' Compensation Commission. A newspaper woman, 
Mrs. Helen Gardener, has recently been appointed as one 
of the three Civil Service Commissioners. A woman law- 
yer is an assistant attorney general. Since given the vote 
in 1 91 7, New York women have been appointed to a num- 
ber of important state and city posts. Miss Frances 
Perkins, an experienced industrial investigator, is a mem- 
ber of the State Industrial Commission at a salary of $8,000. 
A former executive secretary of the Consumers' League is 
chief of the bureau of Women in Industry of this com- 
mission. There are three women on the state board of 
charities. But as yet there is no woman among the twelve 
regents of the University of the State of New York, form- 
ing the state board of education. New York City has two 
women on its reduced board of education of seven mem- 
bers, women deputy commissioners of police and markets, 
a woman city magistrate, a woman assistant district attor- 
ney. These are all political appointments of the present 
mayor. In Mayor Mitchel's administration, New York had 
its first woman head of a city department in the person of 
Dr. Katharine B. Davis, who was commissioner of correc- 
tions. Denver has had a woman commissioner of charities. 

Everywhere qualified women should serve more com- 
monly on administrative boards, especially on school boards, 
Hbrary boards, hospital boards. They should be members 
of workmen's compensation and health insurance commis- 
sions, of boards of inquiry and adjustment, of advisory 
boards in any system of public labor exchanges. The de- 
tachment of women from large industrial and commercial 
interests and their intimate knowledge of the problems of 
everyday living should enable them to contribute an ele- 
ment of fair-mindedness and practical sagacity much needed 
in all such bodies. 

The three community problems upon which attention is 



138 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

focused at present are housing, recreation or the uses of 
leisure time, and the much advertised and exploited topic 
of "Americanization." More in the background but press- 
ing for attention is the question of the labor market and 
its organization through some kind of public employment 
service.^ The acute shortage of teachers and the progres- 
sive deterioration of the schools are challenging community 
action throughout the country. And enveloping and af- 
fecting every specific problem is the general situation 
created by the shrinkage of the dollar and the demand 
for a more democratic organization of human relations in 
civic Hfe and in the professions as well as in the industries. 
Three organizations are conspicuously offering them- 
selves to communities as providing means of dealing with 
some or all of 'these problems. They are Community 
Service, Incorporated, the peace-time successor of War- 
Camp Community Service, itself a mobilization of the 
Playground and Recreation Association; the National So- 
cial Unit Organization; and the American City Bureau, a 
business enterprise engaged in promoting civic activities 
chiefly through chambers of commerce. Community 
Service is incorporated under a charter enabling it to enter 
any field of social betterment, but it announces that its 
primary function is the ''initiation of leisure time activi- 
ties," including under this term all activities, recreational, 
social, educational, and civic, carried on outside of school 
hours or hours of employment.^ It plans to undertake 
work in a given community only upon invitation and to 
act as an organizing and correlating agency and a clearing- 
house of information on subjects within its province. Each 
community is to organize its own Community Service, to 
provide for a permanent community service secretary, and 
to form representative governing and advisory committees 
not identified with any one community agency. The edu- 
cational and civic programs of Community Service Incor- 
porated are still largely in the making. Its organization 

^ See Don D. Lescohier, The Labor Market (1919). 

' See John L. Gillin. Wholesome Citizens and Spare Time ( 1918) ; 
Frederick G. Bonser. School Work and Spare Time (1918), Cleve- 
land Foundation. 



CIVIC AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 139 

is left purposely somewhat indefinite, but it affords op- 
portunities of various kinds to both men and women 
workers with recreational, social, and civic training and 
experience along accepted lines of affiliated and auxiliary 
service. 

A more intensive and novel community program is put 
forward by the National Social Unit Organization, illus- 
trated by its three-year experimental demonstration in a 
neighborhood of thirty-one blocks in Cincinnati, with a 
population of about fifteen thousand. The object of this 
venture was to try out a plan of neighborhood organiza- 
tion whereby ''popular control would be actual and active, 
yet where community affairs would be completely handled." 
The social unit system involves a series of block councils, 
each electing an executive, and a series of occupational 
councils made up of workers resident or serving in the 
neighborhood — doctors, nurses, recreational workers, teach- 
ers, social workers, ministers, and trade unionists are or- 
ganized in Cincinnati — each with a similar executive. The 
block executives form the citizens' council ; the occupational 
executives, the occupational or expert council ; the general 
council consists of both bodies meeting together; the coun- 
cil of executives, of the presiding officers of the three 
bodies. Through this system "the people can tell the ex- 
perts what they want done and the experts can advise the 
people how to do it." "The block workers study needs 
and reflect popular desire and psychology, carry informa- 
tion to the total population, bring back facts and ideas from 
the whole district, decide broad policy, and turn to the 
occupational council for the formulating of programs to 
satisfy needs discovered and policies adopted." The plan 
looks to the ideal of an entire city organized into cooperat- 
ing social units. 

The Cincinnati social unit has attracted a large amount 
of attention, and has been attacked as involving subversive 
political principles. It has invited the careful examination 
of groups of experts representing medicine, public health 
nursing, social service, labor, business, and the church,^ who 
have reported generally in its favor and recommended fur- 

^ The Social Unit Plan (1920), National Social Unit Organization. 



I40 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

ther demonstrations in neighborhoods of different types. 
The Community Councils in New York City are cooperating 
with the National Social Unit Organization in plans for 
local units. Whether social units can be sustained on a 
self-supporting basis and whether they are adaptable to 
various communities remain to be seen. But they repre- 
sent a piece of constructive social planning which deserves 
close study and which is in line with other plans for demo- 
cratic local organization and control — shop committees, 
labor guilds, cooperative societies. Their challenge to social 
and civic thinking comes at an appropriate moment. 

Largely through the efforts of the American City Bureau, 
an organization of community experts and campaign direc- 
tors, chambers of commerce are becoming active in civic 
affairs and developing a broader community outlook. Since 
its origin in 1913 the Bureau has reorganized a large num- 
ber of chambers to carry out definite community programs 
under the direction of civic secretaries. For several years 
it has conducted a summer school of community leadership 
for secretaries, beginning with an attendance of fifteen in 
1915 and reaching three hundred in 1919. It began in 
1920 the publication of a bi-weekly sheet entitled Com- 
munity Leadership through the Chamber of Commerce, and 
is cooperating with Community Service Incorporated in 
the movement for community buildings as war memorials 
and with educational authorities in the campaign for bet- 
ter schools and better salaries for teachers.^ It organized 
the first financial campaign of War-Camp Community 
Service. 

Chambers of commerce are knit into a national system 
through their membership in the Chamber of Commerce of 
the United States with headquarters in Washington. With 
their strongly commercial origins, interests, and member- 
ship, they have naturally been held to represent the busi- 
ness interests of the community and to be practically pow- 
erful organizations of employers. As such, they have 
often been regarded with suspicion by civic and social 
workers and with open hostility by organized labor. While 

* See Know and Help Your Schools. American City Bureau 
(Pamphlet, 1920). 



CIVIC AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 141 

it would be unfortunate to allow them to dominate com- 
munity undertakings, their new civic spirit and policies in- 
vite a closer cooperation with them than has hitherto 
obtained. They should be represented in the management 
of community affairs together with all other organized 
groups, labor unions, social agencies, professional associa- 
tions, schools, libraries, churches, and the city government. 
Certain chambers are including representatives of organ- 
ized labor on their civic committees. The Survey reports 
a novel arrangement in Aberdeen, Washington, where, as a 
result of war-time activities and by mutual consent, organ- 
ized labor has undertaken to support the social services of 
the town — visiting nursing, home service, community serv- 
ice, boys' and girls' clubs, and so on — and the chamber of 
commerce to attend to matters of general prosperity — har- 
bor improvements, new industries, and the Hke. 

Chambers of commerce are very generally promoting 
housing and Americanization programs and working for 
better roads and better marketing faciHties. But their 
civic interests are highly diversified.^ With the growth of 
these community activities, they are beginning to see the 
advantage of women members and of paid women workers. 
Of 139 secretaries replying to an inquiry made by the 
American City Bureau regarding the attitude of their 
chambers toward women, the large majority stated that 
they admit women, and have women members on some 
twenty different kinds of civic committees. In a number 
of places the recently organized Federation of Business and 
Professional Women's Clubs is cooperating with the cham- 
ber of commerce. Several cities have independent women's 
chambers, which have formed a national organization. But 
the tendency appears to be in the direction of a single cham- 
ber for both men and women. Hitherto, most chamber of 
commerce secretaries have been men, although there have 
been a few women secretaries in the smaller communities 
and a number of women assistants in larger places. A 
woman is joint director with her husband of the industrial 
service department of a chamber of commerce in a middle- 
western city. These opportunities are likely to increase, and 

^See Lucius Wilson. The New Profession (1919). 



142 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

they should appeal to women who are interested in the appli- 
cations of business intelligence to civic problems and in a 
better understanding among different elements in the com- 
munity. 

Various other agencies are actively concerned with com- 
munity and civic affairs. The Open Forum Movement, 
originating in Boston, is spreading under various auspices. 
The Interchurch World Movement has made a series of 
community surveys to study the distribution and efficacy 
of protestant churches and their relations to other com- 
munity endeavors. For thirty years social settlements have 
been dealing with neighborhood problems, and have a wealth 
of experience to contribute. In a sense, they were the 
pioneer community centers, and have been steadily moving 
in the direction of assisting communities to organize their 
own activities. They have made invaluable local studies, 
and share experience through the National Federation of 
Settlements. The College Settlements Association of the 
eastern women's colleges has responded to the spirit of the 
times by becoming the Intercollegiate Community Service 
Association with a membership of nineteen colleges and a 
number of private schools. It offers fellowships for train- 
ing in community social work. Several settlements, such 
as South End House in Boston, do likewise. No better 
apprenticeship can be found for a beginner in community 
work than a sojourn in a well organized and modern settle- 
ment house. Before the war the movement to use school- 
houses as community centers had gained considerable head- 
way.^ 

The multiplication of community organizations and the 
greatly increased interest of communities in their own 
affairs are leading to active community investigation and 
research, to the making of numerous surveys and studies 
of special problems. The techniques of such inquiries 
have been worked out by bureaus of municipal research 
and kindred organizations on the side of public administra- 
tion, finance and accounting, and by great endowments like 

* See Henry E. Jackson. A Community Center — What It Is and 
How to Organize It. Bull. U. S. Bureau of Education, 1918, No. 11. 
L. J. Hanifan. The Community Center (1920). 



I 



i 



CIVIC AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 143 

the Russell Sage, Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations. 
The pioneer bureau of municipal research in New York 
City, established by public-spirited citizens, has been fol- 
lowed by others in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, 
and elsewhere, by state and national research bureaus 
under similar auspices, by libraries of municipal and legis- 
lative reference. Fifteen or twenty such research bodies 
are federated in the Governmental Research Conference.^ 
The departments of surveys and exhibits and education of 
the Sage Foundation have made surveys of Springfield, 
Illinois, and of the educational situation in Cleveland. 
Cleveland has made a recreation survey, and is at present 
making a hospital and health survey with a staff of experts 
of national reputation. Other surveys of various kinds are 
constantly undertaken. Experienced professional women 
have been members of both permanent and temporary staffs, 
as assistant directors, field investigators, statisticians, spe- 
cial librarians, makers of graphs and charts, organizers of 
information services and of exhibits. A number of 
women gained valuable experience of this kind in govern- 
ment service during the war. The techniques of survey- 
making and of preparing graphs and charts and exhibit 
materials of various kinds constitute what is practically a 
profession in itself, allied with statistics on the one hand 
and publicity on the other. These methods are increasingly 
in demand by industrial and commercial organizations. ^ 

One of the most urgent and practical community move- 
ments is that for better housing and more adequate control 
of housing projects, in the past too often in the hands of 
greedy and competitive private interests. Although the 
fundamental importance of decent housing had been fully 
recognized by experts before the war, and housing laws of 
a restrictive nature had been passed with more or less 
adequate provision for inspection, housing as a community 
problem had not caught popular attention nor led to commu- 

* See Gustavus A. Weber. Organized Efforts for the Improvement 
of Methods of Adnvinistration in the United States (1919). 

'See E. T. and Mary S. Routzahn. Exhibit Methods (1919), and 
Mary S. Routzahn. Traveling Publicity Campaigns (1920). Willard 
C. Brinton. Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts (1914). 



144 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

nity action. High land values and land speculation, the es- 
tablishment of new industries, the crowdings and shiftings 
of population, and the large profits made through rents 
under such conditions all conspired to confuse the issues 
and to block progress. 

But the acute shortage of houses due to the practical 
cessation of building during the war, the mounting scale of 
rents, and the widespread interest aroused by the rapid 
building of cantonments, the industrial housing projects of 
the United States Housing Corporation, the Shipping 
Board, and various war industries, have brought the whole 
matter home to the public mind as never before. The 
towns and cities that sprang up almost over night to meet 
the needs of great munition and chemical plants have 
thrown a flood of light not only upon industrial housing 
but upon ordinary housing for the mass of people of small 
means and even upon the hardly touched topics of rural 
housing and the temporary housing of migratory workers. 
They have likewise proved that the most modern dwellings 
and shops do not make a satisfied and self-active com- 
munity without places for public gathering and oppor- 
tunities for public recreation. The Report of the U. S. 
Housing Corporation of the Department of Labor is a 
mine of information, presenting the results of the best 
European and American experience and describing housing 
projects completed or under construction at the signing 
of the armistice. Cities all over the country are studying 
their housing needs and launching housing projects with 
the aid of state and municipal appropriations or through 
cooperative associations. They are taking over in some 
cases uncompleted government enterprises. Wisconsin has 
recently passed a municipal and cooperative housing law. 
The California Immigration and Housing Commission is 
handling the difficult matter of housing seasonal and migra- 
tory workers. Akron, Ohio, has a five million dollar hous- 
ing program.^ Undertakings on this scale involve com- 
prehensive town and factory planning and civic and social 
studies of many kinds, calHng for various professional 
experts. 

* See Homes for Workmen. Southern Pine Association (iQip). 



CIVIC AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 145 

Women have long been active in housing reform, and a 
few, Hke Mrs. Albion Fellows Bacon, have been leaders of 
the movement. A recent valuable summary is written by 
a woman. ^ They have made housing surveys and served 
as tenement house inspectors and rent collectors. In 191 7 
New York City had nine women tenement inspectors, three 
of them detailed to instruct tenants. Women have col- 
lected rents for such organizations as the Octavia Hill As- 
sociation in Philadelphia and the Trinity Corporation in 
New York, as well as for real estate firms.^ With the 
present developments in community housing, they will un- 
doubtedly have still wider opportunities. But they will 
need thorough preparation, not only in social economics 
and city government, but in the elements of hygiene and 
sanitation, building construction, administration, and finance. 
Some knowledge of law as it relates to rents and contracts 
will be desirable. Special courses for housing workers 
are as yet hard to find, although housing problems are 
treated in university and college courses and in schools of 
social work. Women interested in work in connection 
with housing will do well to seize every opportunity af- 
forded by positions of an indirectly apprentice character, 
not only with social and civic agencies but also with firms 
of contractors, architects, and real estate dealers. (See 
Chapter XIV.) 

Closely allied with housing and city or town planning 
as community problems are the problems of community 
provision for recreation in its narrower sense and for the 
other uses of leisure time. The announcement that Com- 
munity Service Incorporated is to work chiefly in this 
field has already been mentioned, but many other agencies 
are active. The changes brought about by the general 
shortening of working hours, by prohibition, and by im- 
proved standards of health and education will create new 
recreational and community interests and activities of many 
kinds. Dr. William Mayo said not long ago to a great 

* Edith Elmer Wood. The Housing of the Unskilled Wage 
Earner (1919). 

'See Mary R. Beard. Women's Work in Municipalities (1916), 
Chapter 6. 



146 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

gathering of surgeons that since the close of the civil 
war fifteen years had been added to the average length of 
human life, and that fifteen more might be added in this 
country within the next twenty years. There is a chance to- 
day to apply for the first time in modern life Aristotle's test 
of citizenship, the right employment of leisure. Just as 
society cannot afford to prohibit child labor without at 
the same time providing adequate schools, so it cannot 
afford to reduce hours of labor without at the same time 
providing adequately for the spending of the time thus set 
free. This provision, according to newer ways of thinking, 
must include commercial ^ as well as non-commercial recrea- 
tion — the motion-picture house, the theater, the dance-hall, 
and the pool-room as well as the playground and the com- 
munity center. It must include facilities for adult education 
through more democratic and effective methods of univer- 
sity extension, through trade-union colleges, open forums, 
clubs, classes, and lectures, many of them held in com- 
munity buildings, perhaps through an American adaptation 
of the British Workers' Educational Association. ^ It must 
include the growth of civic intelligence through the active 
participation of all groups in community affairs and enter- 
prises. It must continue and develop recreation for chil- 
dren and young people through playgrounds. Boy and 
Girl Scout organizations. Christian Associations, self-gov- 
erning clubs and societies under various auspices. And 
everywhere it must guard against the danger of forcing 
upon people what certain groups think they want or ought 
to want, rather than letting them determine what they 
want for themselves. Active communities will learn to 
regulate and improve their own commercial recreations, and 
there seems every prospect of a vigorous development of 
community drama, music, pageantry and festival. (See 
Chapter XVI.) Recreation leaders and workers are more 

* See John J. Phelan. Motion Pictures as a Phase of Commer- 
cialised Amusements (1919). 

^ See Adult W orking-ClcLSS Education in Great Britain and the 
United States. U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bulletin 271 
(1920). Final Report Adult Education Committee. British Min- 
istry of Reconstruction (1919). 



CIVIC AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 147 

needed than ever, but motives and methods are steadily 
growing more democratic and less philanthropic. Training 
in physical education, dramatics, games, folk-dancing, and 
woodcraft is of great assistance. (See Chapter V.) 

"Americanization," the word in every one's mouth to-day 
and the most urgent civic problem in popular estimation, 
can be dealt with fairly only against the background of 
community activity in general. Although it means differ- 
ent things to different people, and is being advocated by 
all sorts of groups, official* and non-official, from a variety 
of motives and with a bewildering variety of methods, the 
nucleus of truth and common-sense amid the floods of talk 
and propaganda appears to be that the problem of the for- 
eign-born and non-English-speaking resident, whether citi- 
zen or alien, is essentially a community problem, and must 
be dealt with as an integral part of other community 
problems. "Americanization" is not merely a matter of 
naturalization nor of teaching Enghsh and civics to for- 
eigners. It involves better schools, better housing, better 
health conditions, steady employment at decent wages 
and hours, facilities for recreation, prompt and cheap se- 
curing of legal justice; freedom of every group from dis- 
crimination and exploitation; participation of every group 
in community affairs. This is an ''Americanization" 
program that applies to native-born and foreign-born alike ; 
and any community not striving to put it intO' practice falls 
short of being truly American and truly a community. 
"Pockets" of ignorance and isolation and poverty and ill- 
health and helplessness are an arraignment of any com- 
munity, whatever its racial composition. The Americaniza- 
tion Studies just completed by the Carnegie Corporation 
of New York ^ reach the conclusion that the all-important 
thing to strive for is the uniting of native and foreign 
born in America through unceasing efforts to improve 
living and working conditions and through deepening 
the channels of mutual understanding, cooperation, and 
good will. No country in the world has so rich and so 
diverse a racial composition, and each of its groups has 
something to contribute. During the war our newer popu- 

'^ Americanization Studies. Eleven Volumes, 1920, . 



148 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

lations showed a touching desire to share burdens and 
obHgations. In numerous ways they are Americanizing 
themselves through their own leaders, and this should be 
encouraged. But we of the older stock need to strive to 
understand their psychology and tO' help them to understand 
ours in all the ways of common living. They offer us a 
unique opportunity to see beneath the surface in dealing 
with international problems and to play our part intel- 
ligently in the new society of peoples. Only by fair deal- 
ing and respect and patience and social imagination on both 
sides shall we build a nation that is truly made up of all 
our racial elements. 

In the meantime, federal and state governments have been 
drafting Americanization programs and passing American- 
ization legislation. State and local boards of education, 
chambers of commerce, employers, churches, libraries, asso- 
ciations of citizens of all sorts, have been working inde- 
pendently or cooperatively and with inevitable duplication 
and confusion. Occasionally they ask the help of organ- 
ized labor and of the foreign-born groups themselves, or 
make studies of local foreign populations. It seems gen- 
erally admitted that evening schools do not meet the situa- 
tion. Day classes in English and citizenship are being 
organized in factories, sometimes under the supervision of 
the board of education, but frequently not. The Young 
Women's Christian Association has some fifty so-called 
international institutes for work with foreign women and 
girls. The Council of Jewish Women is active in immi- 
grant aid. Universities and schools of social work are 
offering courses in "Americanization." Normal schools 
and state boards of education are conducting classes in the 
teaching of English to foreigners. The University of Min- 
nesota has outlined a four-year program; the University 
of Wisconsin and other institutions offer separate courses. 
The College of the City of New York announces lecture and 
field extension courses for teachers and social workers on 
the social and cultural backgrounds of the peoples of Greater 
New York. Columbia University has extensive plans for 
research courses on social and political conditions in France, 
Russia, England, Germany, the Americas, Japan and India. 



I 



( 



CIVIC AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 149 

The enormous amount of publicity given to these projects 
and activities has filled the minds of many young women 
with a strong desire to become "Americanization workers." 
But there is as little room here for the inexperienced as 
there is in the equally popular occupation of employment 
management. Successful workers in this field have gained 
an understanding of foreign groups through service among 
them as teachers, social and community workers, librarians, 
nurses, investigators ; and it is in one of these professions 
that the novice should learn through daily contact. With 
vigorous community development ''Americanization" will 
become largely a by-product, and we may hope to find our- 
selves sharing in the reality and hearing much less of the 
term. 

A community matter attracting far less attention at pres- 
ent than the three movements just described but underlying 
them all and demanding careful consideration and wise 
action in the near future is the matter of modes of secur- 
ing employment. The meteoric rise and fall of the War- 
Emergency United States Employment Service, which 
within a year incorporated the few existing state employ- 
ment systems, and established nearly nine hundred offices 
throughout the country only to have them closed through 
lack of support from Congress, has left behind as much 
prejudice as enlightenment owing to its war-time haste and 
extravagance and to its bi-partisan control by management 
and labor, each group accusing the other of undue influ- 
ence. But some method of organizing the labor market is 
seen to be a world need ; and with England strengthening 
her employment exchanges, Canada organizing a system, 
and the first international labor congress providing that 
each nation ratifying its convention ''shall establish a sys- 
tem of free employment agencies under the control of a cen- 
tral authority," the United States is brought face to face 
with the question of setting up a satisfactory permanent 
public employment service. Employment, like education, 
is primarily a community problem, and like education, it 
should be kept out of poUtics and made the concern of all 
citizens and not only of the parties immediately concerned. 
"Community labor boards," or whatever take their place, 



ISO WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

must be as non-partisan as school boards and as representa- 
tive of all essential public interests. Here, as elsewhere, the 
"public" needs to be a reality and not merely a convenient 
fiction. Women have a necessary place on such boards. In 
a well organized system, the states would function chiefly 
as clearing-houses in the distribution of workers ; the fed- 
eral government chiefly as a clearing-house of information 
and a maintainer of standards. Public employment service 
has already revealed itself as a coming profession, and any 
adequate system should provide a carefully worked out plan 
for training. It offers one of the very best opportunities 
for constructive community and personal service, and should 
attract a high type of worker. It continues the work of 
the schools, and is essentially "case-work" dealing with ad- 
justments rather than maladjustments. Communities just 
now could do nothing better than to make thorough studies 
of the agencies dealing with employment with which they 
are provided at present, — the character and profits of fee- 
charging agencies, the efficacy of philanthropic and educa- 
tional agencies, the methods of industrial and commercial 
personnel departments. We need to know their cost in 
terms both of actual money and of time and human effort. 
Public employment service as a profession is dealt with also 
in Chapters XI, XVII, and XX. 

Twelve women in community and civic work filling our 
schedules received in 1918 and 1919 salaries ranging from 
$1,300 to $4,000, with a median salary of $2,250. They in- 
clude the director of a community center in a city public 
school, two executive secretaries of civic clubs with both 
men and women members, an executive secretary and editor 
in the Open Forum Movement, a chamber of commerce sec- 
retary, a lecturer and director of research on immigration in 
a school of social work, a director of a department of ex- 
tended use of public schools, four field investigators and 
research workers in an Americanization study, and a lec- 
turer on current events. Eight of them are college gradu- 
ates, three with graduate work and one a doctor of philos- 
ophy. Of the other three, two have had some college work. 
Three have had courses at schools of social work; one at 
a school for community workers; one at a graduate school 



CIVIC AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 151 

of public health ; one at the Eugenics Record Office ; one at 
a business school. They have had previous experience as 
teachers, educational executives, social workers and investi- 
gators, industrial health inspectors, industrial investigators, 
suffrage organizers, tenement house department workers, 
journalists, statisticians, court reporters. 

The executive secretary of a city and county civic club 
says : 'T plan and direct the work of twenty- four different 
committees, working on twenty-four different kinds of 
work. Do not spend too much time on details ; touch the 
high spots ; develop system and team work. There are very 
few women civic secretaries, not more than a dozen well- 
known ones. There is splendid opportunity in this line 
now." 

A western chamber of commerce secretary says : *T man- 
age the office, which includes a free employment agency, 
answer correspondence, keep records, and direct activities. 
During the harvest season I kept the office open from 5 
A. M. to II P. M. I was given the same salary as my 
predecessors who were men. In fact a man was fired to 
make room for me. If possible, take special training for 
this work, and take first a position as assistant to an effi- 
cient commercial secretary." 

The open forum secretary says : 'T arrange for speak- 
ers, place advertising, write newspaper notices, interview 
musicians and others who desire engagements, edit organ 
of the Open Forum Movement. The only hope for this 
movement is to rouse the community to the value of the 
work. Energetic young women might help in this." 

A worker on an Americanization study, assigned to spe- 
cial investigation of the foreign languages press and theater 
and of immigrant heritages, says: 'T interview editors of 
foreign language papers, engage and handle staff reading 
these papers, chart statistics in graphic form, and so on." 



The civil service, federal, state, and municipal, as afford- 
ing opportunities for professional women, is taken up at 
this point partly because civil administration is undertaking 
to deal with many community matters discussed in this and 



152 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

other chapters, and partly because it is public and civic 
service in the most explicit form. Specific civil service 
positions are so varied in their nature that they are more 
appropriately considered in the several chapters. But all 
branches and departments of government are becoming 
employers of professional workers. The federal civil serv- 
ice is usually first thought of in cennection with the term, 
but there are ten states and some two hundred cities with 
a classified service. Recent reorganizations of state ad- 
ministration, such as those accomplished in Illinois and 
Ohio and proposed in New York and Massachusetts, have 
added to the number and quality of professional opportu- 
nities. The federal government is to-day an employer of 
practically every type of worker. The Congressional Joint 
Commission on Reclassification of Salaries in the Washing- 
ton Federal Services found 2,066 different titles of positions, 
although not all of them represented different types of work. 
The Report of this Commission, issued in March, 1920, 
presents a well-considered plan for the long and sorely 
needed reorganization of the federal civil service. It groups 
the 107,060 government employees in Washington in 1,762 
classes, 376 series, and 44 services, assigning the same titles 
and salaries to persons doing the same type and grade of 
work, wherever they are found in government employ- 
ment, in place of the present hodgepodge of differences 
and inequalities. It provides personnel specifications of 
duties, qualifications, main lines of promotion, and rates of 
compensation ; and recommends that the plan be extended to 
the federal civil service outside of Washington; that the 
Civil Service Commission be made in a full sense the cen- 
tral personnel and classification agency of the government, 
with a comprehensive and uniform employment policy ; that 
an advisory council, made up in equal numbers of admin- 
istrative officers and non-administrative employees, be es- 
tablished and authorized to organize similar personnel com- 
mittees in each government department or service; that 
the principle of equal pay for equal work be consistently 
adopted ; that the Civil Service Commission be empowered 
to establish a definite system of promotion based upon 
efficiency ratings and examinations, to take measures to 



CIVIC AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 153 

provide for the training of employees in service, and to 
recommend from time to time the revision of salaries and 
wages. It points out the present injustices in salaries, due 
to the fact that some are fixed by statute, and others are 
paid from **lump sum" appropriations. While the bill 
drawn by the Commission to put its recommendations into 
effect has not yet been passed by Congress, the report is an 
important contribution to the movement backed by both 
political parties to modernize the federal administration, 
and is bound to have significant results. 

Meanwhile, the numbers of professional women and col- 
lege graduates, trained and untrained, who were in gov- 
ernment service during the war in capacities ranging from 
routine clerks to heads of bureaus, assistants to executives, 
and research and statistical experts, have called the atten- 
tion of this group to government service as a career, or at 
least a valuable professional experience, and the attention 
of the government to professional women as a useful labor 
supply. Not a few war-workers, both men and women, 
have remained in government employment ; and a new spirit 
of independence and initiative is manifest throughout the 
entire federal civil service. The Federal Employees' Union 
includes members of the highest professional standing, and 
has made concerted protest against the inconsistencies and 
irregularities of salary and promotion, as well as outlining 
policies and programs. The Reclassification Commission 
and the National Civil Service Reform League have both 
urged the giving of civil service workers a voice in deter- 
mining the conditions of their own employment. 

Several studies have recently been made of existing dis- 
criminations against qualified women in federal, state, and 
municipal civil services. The Federation of Women's Civil 
Service Organizations has circulated widely a pamphlet 
entitled Women s Place in Civil Service,^ based on a study 
of civil service commissions of the three types and showing 
that (i) women are often arbitrarily excluded from civil 
service examinations; (2) even when women appear on 
eligible lists, the appointing officer, practically always a man, 
has the right to specify sex; (3) separate eHgible lists of 
^ May B. Upshaw (June, 1919). 



154 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

men and of women are frequently maintained. The pam- 
phlet says : "Under many Commissions women are not 
permitted even to be examined for work of any but a sub- 
ordinate character, and mainly in the old fields that have al- 
ways been open tO' them, stenography, nursing, teaching, 
and institutional labor." 

An even more important bulletin. Women in the Gov- 
ernment Service, has been issued by the Women's Bureau 
of the Department of Labor/ It is based upon a careful 
study of federal civil service examinations held during 
the first six months of 1919, and shows that during that 
period sixty per cent of these examinations, covering 155 
types of position out of a total of 260, were closed to 
women, and over sixty-four per cent of examinations for 
professional positions. On the other hand, all but seven 
clerical examinations were open to them. Five days after 
this report was submitted to the Civil Service Commis- 
sion on October 2"/, 1919, the Commission issued a ruling 
opening all examinations to women but still reserving to 
the department appointing officer the right tO' specify sex 
in asking for eligibles for a given vacancy. The Women's 
Bureau, however, points out that the Congressional legis- 
lation giving preference to ex-soldiers at lower civil serv- 
ice ratings than civilians would give women no chance of 
appointment whatever if this were not allowed. There 
are already some 55,000 soldiers on the lists. The Report 
also shows that of 8,000 appointments during the months 
of January and February, 1919, one hundred men and two 
women received initial salaries of $3,600 and over. In 
clerical services more women than men were appointed 
in proportion to their numbers on the eligible lists; in 
higher services, 30 per cent of the eligibles were women, 
and only 15 per cent of the appointments. In positions 
where the entering salary is not fixed by statute, women 
commonly begin at a lower salary than men of like quali- 
fications. This is partly due to their inferior bargaining 
power, since applicants are asked to state the lowest salary 
which they will accept. 

In spite of the situation revealed by these reports — in 
^Bertha M. Nienburg. Women's Bureau, Bull. No. 8 (1920), 



CIVIC AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES 155 

fact largely because of them, since they are certain to lead 
to correction of obvious inequalities of treatment, — the out- 
look for professional women in the civil services has never 
been so encouraging. But there is need for continuous 
vigilance and publicity and for further local studies such 
as the study of Opportunities for Women in the Municipal 
Civil Service of the City of New York issued in 19 18 
by the Intercollegiate Bureau of Occupations. The Wom- 
en's Bureau, the Federation of Women's Civil Service Or- 
ganizations, and the Women's Auxiliary of the National 
Civil Service Reform League might w^ell combine on a 
program. 

Women in the federal civil service filling our schedules 
report salaries ranging from $1,500 to $4,500 plus official 
traveling expenses, w^ith a median salary of $2,310. They 
include executives, scientific and economic experts, field su- 
pervisors, special agents, librarians, and chief clerks in the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Children's Bureau of 
the Department of Labor, the States Relations Service, Bu- 
reau of Markets, and library of the Department of Agri- 
culture, the Public Health Service of the Treasury De- 
partment, the Federal Board for Vocational Education. 
Women in state civil services report salaries ranging from 
$1,500 to $2,500 and living w^ith a median salary of $1,980. 
They include a state supervisor of mother's aid, a director 
of food and drug inspection and a bacteriologist in state 
departments of health, a state factory inspector, and super- 
intendents and resident physicians in state institutions. 
Women in municipal civil services report salaries ranging 
from $1,350 to $5,100 with a median salary of $2,100. They 
include directors of a bureau of child hygiene and a voca- 
tional guidance bureau, the secretary of a board of chil- 
dren's guardians, the secretary of a board of estimate, civil 
service examiners, estimate examiners, a lawyer in a city 
legal department, a director of extension use of school 
buildings, a probation officer, and three policewomen. 



CHAPTER IX 

SOCIAL SERVICES *. I 

What is popularly known as "social service*' — or "social 
work" as its practitioners prefer to call it, though they are 
casting about for another name — is taken up at this point 
for several reasons. It is hoped that treating it between 
chapters dealing with public health, food and living con- 
ditions, and community organization on the one hand and 
chapters dealing with personnel management, industry, 
and education on the other, may best serve to bring out 
the many affiliations of "social service" and the forces now 
at work transfo^rming its scope, outlook and methods. A 
lively exchange of workers and ideas is going on among 
these several fields, and they are all striving in one way 
or another to put into practice prevailing views regarding 
individual behavior and the more democratic management of 
group affairs. 

Modern "social service" is not a single, homogeneous oc- 
cupation but a cluster of "social services," each with its 
own problems, training, and techniques. We hear now- 
adays far less of social work in general and far more of 
child-welfare work, boys' and girls' work, family case work, 
"home service," industrial work, rural work, protective 
work, vocational guidance, mental hygiene, social legislation, 
and so on. Much that was formerly carried on frankly 
as "social service" is now conducted under other names and 
other auspices. A double process is going on whereby 
social ideals and practices are pervading long established 
professions such as medicine and teaching, and at the same 
time certain "social services" such as community work and 
"industrial welfare work" are setting up as independent 
professions and repudiating "social service" motives and di- 

156 



SOCIAL SERVICES 157 

rection. There is a growing sensitiveness to the use of the 
term as savoring of sentimentality and philanthropy in- 
stead of justice and as only a step removed from the "char- 
ity" which the charity organization societies are dropping 
from their titles. 

On the other hand there have never been so many "social 
workers," so many opportunities and plans for training of 
a professional character, nor so many discussions of the 
status of social work as a profession. All this invites re- 
newed attention to the question : Is there a profession 
of social work with certain principles and standards opera- 
tive in all the various "social services" and meeting funda- 
mental human needs as they are met by the professions of 
medicine and engineering? This book cannot do more than 
call attention to divergent views, which may be summar- 
ized as follows: (i) the view that social service is a tran- 
sient and self-extinguishing profession, made necessary only 
by the present faulty organization of society;^ (2) the view 
that social service is a mediating occupation without final 
professional authority and responsibility ;2 (3) the view that 
social service is an emerging profession, at present slough- 
ing off its non-professional attributes and finding its per- 
manent professional justification. The third view was ad- 
vanced more than ten years ago by Dr. Richard C. Cabot 
and is set forth in a recent volume by Professor Arthur 
J. Todd. 

Dr. Cabot holds that ''the essence and center" of social 
work is '*the study of character under adversity," and that 
"the true business of the social worker is psychical diagno- 
sis and treatment/' to^ know "the psychology of the hard- 
pressed." ^ He has recently given more explicit grounds 
for this position. "The profession of the social worker 
. . . has developed in the United States mostly within the 
past twenty-five years. Probably ten thousand persons are 
now so employed. It is known by various titles — social 
worker, school nurse, home and school visitor, welfare 

^ See Vida D. Scudder. Opportunities for Women in Social Serv- 
ice, in Vocations for the Trained Woman. Part 2 (1914). 

'See Abraham Flexner. Is Social Work a Profession? (1915). 
^Social Service and the Art of Healing (1909), Chapter 2. 



158 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

worker, hospital social worker, probation officer — varying 
according to the particular institution — the hospital, the 
court, the factory, the school — from which it has devel- 
oped . . . yet the same fundamental motive power has been 
at work in each case. ... It has become more and more 
clear, in the last quarter of a century, that we are dealing 
with people in masses so great that the individual is lost 
sight of . . . . Above all duties it is the function of the social 
worker to discover and to provide for those individual 
needs which are in danger of being lost sight of." ^ Dr. 
Cabot likewise makes it abundantly clear that only "as an 
expert, as a teacher, or as a pupil" can the social worker 
deal with people on a basis of mutual respect. The "pro- 
fessional friend" or the "professional good neighbor" imply 
almost as much patronage as the "lady bountiful" and far 
more unreality.^ 

Professor Todd says : "Modern social reform movements 
and social work represent a series of concrete attempts to 
define and redefine the rights of man." "The individual is 
not, then, a natural product; he is the product of civiHza- 
tion ; and civilization is social achievement." ^ In his opin- 
ion, "Social work ought to stand for organizing scientifically 
the forces, personal and material, of a community in such 
a way as to eliminate waste and friction, and to raise pro- 
gressively the capacity of every member for productivity, 
service, and joy in life." It will become a profession when 
social workers have "the will to think clearly and to know 
profoundly." ^ 

Both writers thus point out the inherent human need 
which may be said to furnish a basis for a legitimate pro- 
fession of social work — the gap between individual social 
equipment and the demands of organized society. Refer- 
ence has already been made to the growing realization that 
modern industry and modern civilization in general afford 
few outlets for powerful "instinctive trends" deeply rooted 
in man's physical and mental make-up. All the "rights 

^Social Work (1919), Introduction. 

^Social Service and the Art of Healing (1909), Chapter 2. 

^ The Scientific Spirit and Social Work (1919), pp. 2, 25, 65, 70, 

107. 



SOCIAL SERVICES 159 

of man" — the right to health, the right to justice, the right 
to education, the right to family and group relations, the 
right to work, the right to leisure, the right to religious 
and artistic satisfactions — have an instinctive basis, and are 
essential to the normal life and development of every hu- 
man being. To' guarantee some of these rights the great 
professions and government itself exists ; others have been 
left to the inclination and effort of the individual. But as 
things are now, this does not mean that the individual se- 
cures them. Especially are man's simple social instincts and 
outgrown social traditions a meager resource for the achieve- 
ment of normal and adequate family and neighborhood 
and civic Hfe amid the complexities and barriers and pres- 
sures of modern civilization. Unguided and unsupple- 
mented, they are bound to result in failures, perversions, 
and maladjustments of many kinds. Just because of this 
gulf between man's original social nature and the elaborate 
world in which he finds himself is the professional social 
worker, the expert in social relations, critically needed. It 
is perhaps allowable to alter Dr. Cabot's definition of social 
work to the study of character under ''com^plexity," since 
this term covers the difficulties inherent in prosperity as 
well as in adversity. Both need expert treatment. 

Social work as a profession has two different but sup- 
plementary aspects. To Dr. Cabot the social worker is 
primarily the expert dealing with individuals as affected by 
social conditions; to Professor Todd he is primarily the 
expert dealing with social conditions as they affect the lives 
of individuals. One emphasizes what is commonly called 
"social case work";^ the other, what is commonly called 
''social mass work" — with groups and communities, through 
organization and legislation. 

Social case workers and social mass workers are learn- 
ing that not only must they frequently report their plans 
and findings to each other, and mutually check results, but 
also that both must invite the genuine participation of the 
public and of the people most intimately concerned. With- 
out this triple alHance, the worker with individuals runs 

* See Mary E. Richmond. Social Diagnosis (1917), and the new 
monthly, The Family. 



i6o WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

the danger of becoming enmeshed in routine details and of 
deaHng with people as "cases" in the abstract rather than 
as human beings; the worker with groups runs the danger 
of pushing ready-made programs ; both run the danger of 
that arrogance of mind which has been the besetting sin 
of all professions and which largely accounts for the popu- 
lar distrust of "the expert." A new sense of "the public," 
or rather, of many concrete "publics," is one of our assets 
from the war, although it is still too frequently employed 
in the interests of a dubious kind of publicity and with 
the assumption that the public is a passive body. 

As society is now constituted, both social case work and 
social mass work include education, relief, and prevention. 
In the past case work has centered about relief; mass 
work about prevention. But the distinction is far from 
rigid. Many social enterprises require both types of worker ; 
more are likely to do so in the future. It is coming to be 
generally recognized that relief work is an emergency 
measure, a sign of acute maladjustment calling for drastic 
improvement in conditions ; and that social work as a pro- 
fession must emphasize educative, preventive, and posi- 
tively constructive social measures. 

As the last chapter has shown, many forms of group or 
mass work are ceasing to be known as "social service," and 
are being dealt with as community and civic matters by 
public and private bodies not identified with social agencies 
as such. State and local governments, chambers of com- 
merce, employers and labor unions, professional organiza- 
tions, educational institutions, are all cooperating in pro- 
grams for housing, health, "Americanization," recreation, 
better schools, better markets, employment exchanges, and 
so on. These movements are not thought of as philan- 
thropic any more than public education is thought of as 
philanthropic. They are not for the obviously handicapped 
alone but for the benefit of the entire community. But al- 
ready they are finding that the will to community action is 
by no means the same thing as bringing it to pass; and 
they are clamoring for expert directors, advisers, investiga- 
tors, research workers, "civic engineers." Community af- 
fairs can be successfully handled and tested, group spirit 



SOCIAL SERVICES i6i 

and intelligent management can be encouraged only by ex- 
perts in social relations who know the conditions which 
govern satisfactory and progressive joint action as well as 
the reasons for failure. Other experts — doctors, town- 
planners, municipal research experts, teachers, public offi- 
cials, employment managers — all contribute ; but they are too 
much involved in their special problems to make the work- 
ing of the whole their primary object. Hence, there is a 
growing demand for civic or community leaders and ex- 
pert workers with groups of various kinds. As yet, their 
professional equipment is hardly equal to their responsibili- 
ties and opportunities, although training courses for com- 
munity workers are springing up. With the present ten- 
dency toward the social self-direction of groups and neigh- 
borhoods, they are likely to be increasingly employed under 
the local government or by community councils, cooperative 
societies, labor unions, and the like. They are already being 
called in as consultants. 

A similar enlargement and shift of emphasis toward pre- 
vention and construction is going on in the coextensive field 
of individual or case work. Social case workers have long 
been looked upon as practitioners concerned with the diag- 
nosis and treatment of personal and family social ills and 
disorders, as the physician with bodily and mental ills and 
disorders. Dr. Cabot draws a striking parallel between the 
twO', and insists that there must be "team-work" of doctor, 
educator, and social worker, and that all three must be 
teachers and psychologists.^ Case work was the pioneer 
type of social work in the modern sense, and has made a 
distinctive contribution through bringing group resources 
to bear upon individual needs. It has suffered from per- 
haps inevitable preoccupation with the obviously dependent 
or handicapped, so that the term has come to be unduly 
associated in the popular mind with this group. A perma- 
nent benefit of the Red Cross home service arises from a 
wider extension of case-work methods to individuals and 
families ordinarily maintaining their social integrity and 
only temporarily disorganized by war-time conditions. 
But case work is being more fundamentally strengthened 
^Social Service and the Art of Healing, especially Chapter 3. 



i62 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

by several independent movements, the social bearings of 
which grow steadily more apparent. Chief among these 
are (i) the mental hygiene movement, which deals with 
emotional and volitional conduct disorders and their pre- 
vention ; (2) the movement for intelligence tests of people 
of different educational and occupational groups to discover 
inferior, average, and superior native abiHty; (3) the vo- 
cational guidance movement, which seeks to relate indi- 
vidual aptitudes and occupational requirements and re- 
sources; and (4) the employment or personnel management 
movement, which seeks to utilize the results of the first 
three movements in promoting industrial productivity and 
the personal satisfactions of the individual worker. All 
these movements are based on the case work view that ex- 
pert study of the individual is requisite for satisfactory ad- 
justments and readjustments in practically every type of 
social situation. It is a theme for the satirist that persons 
who would shudder at being considered "cases" in the ordi- 
nary social service sense plume themselves upon having 
been "psycho-analyzed" or "mentally-tested." The psychi- 
atrist and the psychologist are doing to some extent for the 
well-to-do what the case worker has done for the poor. 
They strongly reenforce the view that preventive and edu- 
cational work must begin with the child ; and also give warn- 
ing of the damage done by clumsy and unskilled handling 
of problems of personality and conduct. "Case methods" 
are being applied to the exceptionally bright as well as 
to the exceptionally dull, and to individuals of every edu- 
cational and economic level, with the object of releasing 
capacity as well as of reducing incapacity. In this larger 
sense, teachers, vocational counselors, public employment 
workers, personnel workers, all persons who carefully 
study and direct the behavior Of individuals, are case 
workers. The establishment of health and other neighbor- 
hood centers is making possible the instruction of small 
groups to supplement or take the place of the slower in- 
struction of each family or individual. 

One of the obligations resting upon professional "case 
workers" of every kind — doctors, lawyers, psychologists, 
as well as social workers — is that of reporting at intervals 



SOCIAL SERVICES 163 

case data as a basis for comparisons and conclusions. A 
valuable ''case history series" dealing with various medical 
fields has already appeared, and there are ''case books" of 
law and economics. A similar series of case books dealing 
with the different fields of social work would be of great 
professional value to students and practitioners. An inno- 
vation only recently contemplated but much needed is a 
series of "case histories" dealing with so-called "normal" 
individuals and families. We know infinitely more of the 
delinquent girl than we do of the "straight" girl, of the 
psychopathic person than we do of the non-psychopathic 
person. Dr. Helen Woolley's studies of boys and girls going 
to work offer something of the sort, and a recent English 
study of eight hundred working men and women of Sheffield 
shows what might be done in this direction.^ Here, colleges, 
normal schools, and schools of social work might help. 

A practical classification of social work recently prepared 
by the National Social Workers' Exchange brings out 
clearly the main divisions of the profession and the di- 
versities in each. It likewise shows the interrelations of 
social work and other professions, and includes certain 
types of work which in this book are dealt with as separate 
allied fields or at least debatable territory. Its six main di- 
visions are as follows: (i) Social Case Work (work with 
individuals); (2) Social Group Work; (3) Social Reform 
Work (work with people as a mass) ; (4) Social Research 
Work (the discovery and use of facts); (5) Industrial 
Work; (6) Specialties. 

Under social case work it includes child welfare work ; 
church visiting work ; family case work ; medical social 
work; occupational therapy; probation, protective, parole, 
and prison work ; public health nursing and visiting ; psychi- 
atric social work ; school visiting^ visiting housekeeping ; vo- 
cational guidance (in educational institutions only) ; wel- 
fare work (see Industrial Work). This list indicates that 
what used to be considered the main type of case work, 
that done by charity organization societies with families 
in social and economic difficulties, now takes its place as 
only one among many types, "family case work." In view 

^ The Equipment of the Workers (1919). 



i64 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

of recent analyses of family psychology and its effect upon 
children, work with families may be at the point of enlarg- 
ing its scope and enriching its techniques. The American 
Association for Organizing Charity has changed its name to 
the American Association for Organizing Family Social 
Work, and is being followed by member societies through- 
out the country. And no case workers of any type, in- 
cluding teachers, can afford to be ignorant of the quarterly 
entitled Mental Hygiene, issued by the National Committee 
of that name. 

This classification divides what has been discussed as 
social mass work into group work proper — with "face-to- 
face" or local community groups — and social reform work 
with the public at large. Under the first heading it places 
"Americanization" activities, work with communities, com- 
munity centers, clubs, settlements, playgrounds, general 
and industrial recreation work, physical training. Under 
the second, it places reform along civic, housing, industrial, 
and legislative lines; publicity and financial work; pubHc 
health work, including nursing, tuberculosis work, social, 
child, and industrial hygiene. Under research work, it 
places investigation, research, preparation of surveys and 
exhibits, and social statistics. Under "specialties," it places 
workers whose training is in other fields but who are em- 
ployed under "social" auspices — workers in agriculture, 
community singing, domestic science, dramatics, eugenics, 
financial campaigns, administrative heads and matrons in 
institutions, linguists, mental examiners, nurses, physicians, 
psychologists, psychiatrists, registrars, secretaries, workers 
with special racial groups. It calls attention to the fact 
that "There are, or may be, executives, organizers, propa- 
gandists, field workers, publicity and financial workers, re- 
search workers, teachers, and rural and urban workers in 
all of these groups." ^ 

The classification is based upon actual calls for workers 
coming to the National Social Workers' Exchange, and 
covers activities all loosely included at the present time 
under the term "social work." But the development of 

* Edith Shatto King. Social Work as a Professional Opportunity. 
Journal of Education, April 29, 1920. 



SOCIAL SERVICES 165 

social work as a profession is apparently in the direction 
of closer definition and a demarcation of cooperating and 
progressively socialized fields, somewhat as they are marked 
off tentatively in the chapters of this book. Public health 
work, for instance, although much of it was initiated by 
social agencies, is not to-day primarily a field of social work. 
Community and civic work in their various forms are as- 
suming an independent status. Industry is repudiating the 
term "welfare work." In fact, practically all forms of 
group work are being more and more carried on under the 
auspices of the people concerned or at least under the name 
of the special object in view. In case work, distinguishing 
terms are being applied. Before long, we may have as 
many kinds of social worker as there are kinds of engineer 
and with qualifying words as commonly used. In the 
future, social workers may be recognized as specialists in 
the social relations of individuals or groups, and, as such, 
be attached to organizations and institutions of many types, 
rather than to "social agencies," or be retained as consult- 
ants. Hospital social workers, visiting teachers, are now so 
attached. Separate '^social service agencies" may become 
social research bureaus, information services, and services 
of consultation and audit, called in to plan for satisfactory 
social relations in any kind of public or private enterprise 
and to examine periodically their success in operation. 
Such expert services are common on the material side in 
commerce and industry, and are now being extensively es- 
tablished to deal with problems of labor management, the 
new "industrial relations" services. All this means that 
the human aspects of any situation are coming to be con- 
sidered as an integral and not a supplementary and external 
part of the handling of that situation. To maintain the 
professional standards of social work. Professor Todd urges 
that "time ought to be definitely allowed in a worker's 
schedule for periodical checking up. Disinterested experts 
should be called in occasionally as auditors are in business 
or municipal research experts in public affairs, or as the 
Life Extension Institute proposes for its members, for a 
sympathetic stock taking of our technical and spiritual re- 
sources. Teachers of methods of social work should in- 



t66 women professional WORKERS 

elude ways of self-testing and analysis which can be used 
as barometers." ^ 

If systematic preparation and continued self-improve- 
ment of its practitioners are essential marks of a profes- 
sion, social work is well on its way to that title, although 
it has not yet reached the standards of medicine, law, and 
engineering. It was not until 1904 that the first full-time 
training school of social work was established, the New 
York School of Philanthropy — lately changing its name to 
the New York School of Social Work. Its course was at 
first one year in length, extended in 191 1 to two years, and 
based at least nominally upon college graduation or its 
equivalent. There are five other independent schools of 
social work, situated in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Rich- 
mond, and St. Louis. Most of them have afiiliations with 
adjacent universities and colleges. Higher academic institu- 
tions have been steadily developing their graduate and under- 
graduate courses in the social sciences, and several of them 
have established professional schools of social work. The 
six independent schools and nine universities and colleges 
have organized an Association of Training Schools for Pro- 
fessional Social Work with the purpose of further develop- 
ing standards of training. There is greatly increased atten- 
tion to supervised field work as a necessary part of training, 
and to social research and social publicity. Institutions em- 
phasizing these aspects of training have come into exist- 
ence : the New School for Social Research in New York ; 
the Carola Woerishoffer Graduate School of Social Econ- 
omy of Bryn Mawr College ; the Smith College Training 
School for Social Work at Northampton, Massachusetts. 

An educational inheritance from the war period is the 
policy adopted by some of the large national organizations 
of establishing intensive training systems for their own 
workers, both as 'Vestibule schools" and for those already 
in service. The most conspicuous example of this is the 
Department of Civilian Relief of the American Red Cross, 
which is continuing its "home service" work on a peace- 
time basis in communities without other social case work 
agencies, and has made arrangements with over thirty uni- 

* The Scientific Spirit and Social Work, p. 130. 



SOCIAL SERVICES 167 

versities and colleges for courses ranging from three months 
to a year in length, theoretical work taking one-half the 
time, under the college department of sociology, field work 
taking the other half under an experienced social worker, 
temporarily attached to the faculty. The Red Cross like- 
wise holds "institutes" at educational institutions for its 
workers in service. "Community Service, Incorporated," 
and the Salvation Army have also established training sys- 
tems. The National Board of the Young Women's Chris- 
tian Associations has had a national training school for sec- 
retaries since 1908. All these special "training systems" are 
in line with developments in the industrial and commercial 
fields ; but they are better adapted to workers with some 
experience than to beginners. 

The problem of volunteer assistants in social work does 
not properly enter into a discussion of professional work- 
ers, except in connection w4th their professional super- 
vision and their value as a means of educating the public. 
Social agencies are of many minds regarding their efficacy 
and economy. There is much to be said for the position 
that a worker cannot be a satisfactory volunteer without 
some experience as a paid worker. Many social agencies, 
however, especially charity organization societies, have in 
the past made use of "volunteers in training," who were 
really unpaid apprentices. The trend of opinion and the 
best usage seem to be in favor of paying workers in train- 
ing an apprentice or scholarship wage unless they are stu- 
dents in educational institutions doing the work as super- 
vised field or practice training, and sometimes in this case 
also. It appears to be generally recognized that workers 
need a broader background than that furnished by any one 
organization, and that a cooperative training system involv- 
ing the college or school of social work on the one hand 
and the field institution or organization on the other is 
the wiser arrangement. Bryn Mawr College provides both 
unpaid and paid practical experience for its graduate stu- 
dents — unpaid as a practicum for a certain number of hours 
each week during the college year and paid through actual 
positions during the summer months or for a period of 
six months after an initial year of college residence. The 



i68 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Smith College School for Social Work provides resident 
instruction during two successive summers and eight inter- 
vening months of supervised practice under some approved 
social agency. 

The part played by the college undergraduate course in 
preparation for social v^ork is still a matter of some differ- 
ence of opinion. A large although dwindling number of 
social workers are without college degrees, including some 
of the leaders ; and many college graduates have become 
social workers without further training. But the pioneer 
and experimental period is over. College graduation, in- 
cluding certain specified courses, is coming to be a pre- 
requisite, and further training of one, two, or even three 
years to be considered essential to the highest profes- 
sional standing. There are already correlations between 
salary and the amount of general and professional educa- 
tion.^ 

Both large social organizations and individual social 
workers filling our schedules emphasize these requirements. 
A metropolitan family case work society in the east says: 
"Our experience leads us rarely to engage a case worker 
or executive who is not college trained. We employ many 
graduates of the schools of social work; and give them 
the preference." 

A similar society in the Middle West says : "We are put- 
ting forth every effort to employ in the responsible position 
of district visitor only college women, and also in addition, 
college women who have had the technical school training, 
such as the School of Civics, etc. We find that very few 
women who have not had college training or at least some 
portion of a college course have a sufficiently trained mind 
to be valuable in social case-work. The technical school 
is the sine qua non of success in this work." 

The American Red Cross says : "Home service workers 
need a good general educational background — a college 
course and then a professional course of a year or longer. 
College women are given preference in professional posi- 
tions." 

^ See Expenditures and Salaries of Case Workers. The Family. 
March, April, 1920. 



SOCIAL SERVICES 169 

A national society says : "College training or the equiva- 
lent is practically a necessity." 

A state child welfare agency says : "We would rather 
employ college women than non-college women." 

Leading women social workers, some of whom lament 
their own lack of college and professional training, give 
advice of the same nature: 

"Prepare first by a college course ; then by a course in a 
school of social work." 

"Take very thorough university and school of .civics train- 
ing, stressing sociology, economics, and applied psychology." 

"Secure college training plus training in some school of 
social work with two or three years of practical experi- 
ence." 

"Take special training, and take first a position as assist- 
ant to an efficient secretary." 

Higher education to-day is drawing a clear although not 
rigid distinction between undergraduate work as liberal and 
pre-professional and graduate work as specialized and pro- 
fessional. (See Chapters XX and XXI.) Most professional 
occupations, including social work, are following the lead 
of medicine and specifying certain undergraduate courses 
as "pre-professional" to their particular type of training. 
The head of a school of social work not long ago prepared 
the following statement of training recommended as de- 
sirable for social workers: "(i) College education or its 
equivalent. Desirable preparation in the undergraduate 
work, looking toward vocational training, includes courses 
in social economics, political science, biology, psychology. 
It is assumed, of course, that there will be good training 
also in the use of English. The above is all pre-vocational 
training. (2) Vocational training should include at least 
one year's work in a professional school which should in- 
clude courses in statistics, social case work, community 
work, and a substantial amount of supervised field- 
work." 

There are educators who think that only social observa- 
tion and reporting should be done by students during the 
undergraduate course; that field work and practice work 
may be profitably undertaken only by graduate students of 



I70 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

greater maturity with the background of a Hberal educa- 
tion and under the supervision of especially equipped teach- 
ers whose work is so arranged that they have time and 
strength for intensive instruction and field direction of 
small groups.^ 

There are other educators who think that mere observa- 
tion is too passive and unselective a process, and that un- 
dergraduates in their last two years of college work and in 
advanced courses may profitably begin to study social situ- 
ations and data at first hand and to plan courses of action 
in relation thereto. But the purpose of undergraduate 
field work is preliminary and initiatory, to show the range 
of materials and to open up methods of dealing with 
them. Its object is to establish first contacts, to give a 
certain orientation with regard to a profession, not to 
train for that profession. Since it must always be kept 
primarily educational, it is limited chiefly to investigation 
and to certain forms of group work. It can bring the stu- 
dent to a first-hand realization of the need for case work 
and to the study of its requirements. But it can hardly 
with fairness embark upon its difficult and delicate practice. 

Apart from term-time observation and field work in 
connection with college courses, the undergraduates of to- 
day are being given various opportunities to make prelimi- 
nary contacts with the practice of social work through ex- 
cursions, visits, and conferences during ithe Christmas, 
spring, or summer vacations, or through what are coming 
to be called "student vacation apprenticeships" — positions 
of a routine and sub-professional character in social 
agencies — settlements, vacation homes or camps, child- 
piacing organizations, and so on. In 1917 and 1918 the 
Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston ar- 
ranged a three or four days' program of visits to social 
agencies and institutions, conferences, and talks by leading 
social workers for selected undergraduates of the women's 
colleges. Since 191 7, the Charity Organization Society of 
New York has invited small groups of not more than ten 

*See Bryn Mawr College Announcements (1919-1920). Carola 
Woerishoffer, graduate Department of Social Economy and Social 
Research, pp. 5-6. 



SOCIAL SERVICES 171 

college students, both men and women, to spend a month 
of the summer as its guests, living in settlement houses and 
carrying out a program of visits, discussions, and super- 
vised field work under the district secretaries of the society. 
The Young Men's Christian Association began a similar 
experiment before the war, and in 1919 renewed it as 
part of a definite ''Make Your Summer Count" compaign 
in the colleges. Social institutions of various kinds, hospi- 
tals, children's homes, reformatories, are inviting students 
to spend thfeir short vacations with them; the college settle- 
ments have long done this for women students of their sup- 
porting colleges. The Intercollegiate Community Service 
Association, with chapters in twenty eastern colleges and 
universities, sub-chapters in forty girls' schools, and two 
organizing secretaries working with undergraduates, is ac- 
tively engaged in making arrangements for these ''student 
vacation apprenticeships." This movement is bound to 
develop ; but it should never be lost sight of that such work 
is not professional training proper but a mode of making 
preliminary contacts and testing one's own inclination and 
aptitude for a given profession. 

The new professional emphasis in social work may be at 
first discouraging to women who have been in the habit of 
thinking that in This field, as in teaching, no preparation is 
necessary beyond the college course, and in some cases not 
even that. But neither in teaching nor in social work is 
this longer true. In both fields, however, it is not a serious 
disadvantage, if financial conditions require it, to spend a 
year or two as sub-professional workers and then to enter 
upon professional training. There are also enlarging op- 
portunities for carrying on paid work and professional train- 
ing at the same time, through afternoon or summer courses, 
although this makes heavy and prolonged demands upon 
time and strength. Prospective doctors and lawyers are 
frequently obliged to defer their professional courses for 
several years while they secure the money necessary 
through other work which usually does not bear upon their 
professional careers as directly as teachers and social work- 
ers may make theirs. 

Scholarships and fellowships for training in social work 



172 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

are offered by various institutions and organizations, and 
need to be increased both in number and amount. 

An adequate fellowship in these days should carry a sti- 
pend of not less than a thousand dollars and preferably of 
fifteen hundred, although few at present reach these amounts. 
Many university fellowships may be used for graduate study 
in the social sciences ; some are so designated. The schools 
of social work offer a limited number of fellowships. The 
New York School, for instance, announces four of the 
value of $850, including $150 for tuition. The Intercolle- 
giate Community Service Association continues the practice 
of the College Settlements Association, and offers several 
partial fellowships of $450 to graduates of contributing 
member colleges. The Women's Educational and Indus- 
trial Union has long offered three fellowships of $500 in 
social-economic research. The Association of Collegiate 
Alumnae and certain independent settlements also provide 
social fellowships. The Students' Aid Societies of both 
Smith and Vassar administer vocational fellowships of 
$500, which may be used by graduates preparing for social 
service. These fellowships all require college graduation 
with pre-professional courses in economics and sociology; 
some of them require in addition one year of graduate work. 



CHAPTER X 
SOCIAL services: II 

Social work follows teaching and nursing in the num- 
bers of women engaged in it. Although there are no ex- 
act figures, it is probably safe to say that there are between 
ten and twenty thousand social workers in the United 
States, of whom seventy-five per cent are women. In the 
1 910 census, where persons in this occupation appeared only 
under "semi-professional pursuits" as "religious and char- 
ity workers" and "keepers of charitable and penal institu- 
tions," women were fifty-six per cent of the total number. 
A recent study of positions in social work in Minneapolis ^ 
shows a distribution of 302 women and 87 men, or 71.2 per 
cent women. Of 88 graduates- of the two-year course of the 
New York School of Social Work, 'j2, or 81.9 per cent are 
women. These figures cover the war period, when few 
young men were available and are probably higher than 
normal. 

The demand for adequately trained social workers, both 
men and women, has been greatly increased because of the 
new social conditions and new sense of social responsi- 
bility arising out of the war, and also because of the con- 
tinuance of national war-time social agencies, such as the 
Red Cross home service and Community Service, Incor- 
porated, the outgrowth of the War-Camp Community Serv- 
ice. There is a shortage of workers ; and many organiza- 
tions are carrying on systematic and frequently overlapping 
recruiting in the colleges. 

It is undoubtedly desirable that the numbers of men and 
women in social work should be more nearly equal. The 
work with soldiers and sailors and the new importance of 

^Positions in Social Work in Minneapolis (1919). 

173 



174 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

community work are fortunately turning the attention of 
young men toward the profession. While on the whole so- 
cial work offers a freer opportunity to persons of ability 
and training irrespective of sex than any other profession, 
it betrays the tendency so strongly marked in education, of 
assigning administrative and "group work" positions to 
men and "case work'' positions to women. 

In Minneapolis, 31.2 per cent of the men studied were 
general executives of agencies and only y.2 per cent of the 
women ; 18.5 per cent of the men were heads of depart- 
ments within agencies and 9.2 per cent of the women ; 
9.3 per cent of the men were case workers or investiga- 
tors and 19.6 per cent of the women. In actual numbers, 
the distribution of men and women in executive positions 
was more nearly even : twenty-seven men general execu- 
tives and twenty-two women ; sixteen men heads of depart- 
ments and twenty-eight women. The larger proportion of 
the men in important positions is to a considerable extent 
accounted for by the fact that of the workers reporting 
education, 71 per cent of the men are college graduates 
and only 38.8 per cent of the women. Thorough profes- 
sional equipment on the part of women will increase their 
representation in social leadership. Many already hold 
distinguished posts. 

In fact, social work of the modern type makes a serious 
appeal to young women of good native ability, solid prepa- 
ration, wide outlook, resourcefulness, and courage. It means 
having a hand in the making of the social order and the 
making of individuals. It calls for people with a grasp 
of the motives governing social and political action and of 
the springs of individual conduct, with a knowledge of his- 
torical and racial backgrounds and an understanding of 
workable methods of progress. The modern social worker 
must have a genuine and unsentimental liking for people 
and a respect for them and their reticences; an ''ability to 
discern the great from the trivial" ; a sense of humor ; and 
a sturdy belief in the possibilities of group intelHgence and 
good will. There is no room left for vaguely benevolent 
persons, young or old, nor for "professional uplifters.'* 
Neither can social workers ascribe to themselves ^ny su- 



SOCIAL SERVICES 175 

perlor virtue. As Dr. Cabot says, they need "all the vir- 
tues no more and no less than the railroad man, the farmer, 
or the shopkeeper." But they dO' need disinterestedness 
and social imagination. Every prospective social worker 
should read Professor Todd's chapter on "The Adventur- 
ous Attitude in Social Work." ^ 

Whatever their affiliations, social workers may be grouped 
as executives, supervisors and teachers, case or service 
workers, publicity and financial workers, and research 
workers. Executive workers may be heads of institutions, 
of public departments or bureaus, of voluntary organiza- 
tions, and of subdivisions of these bodies. They may be 
organizing or regional field secretaries. Field supervisors 
and district secretaries are of course also executives ; but 
the growing emphasis upon supervised practice work and 
training in service as essential parts of professional prepa- 
ration leads us to group them rather with teachers. Accord- 
ing to present thinking, every supervisor must be a teacher 
and every teacher to some extent a supervisor. Universi- 
ties and colleges are calling for a new type of instructor 
who shall be both a doctor of philosophy in the social sci- 
ences and also an experienced social worker, and thus 
able^to conduct advanced courses for small groups of gradu- 
ate students and to supervise their related field work. It 
is difficult to find people with this double equipment, and 
they are in great demand. But they are being developed 
through the cooperative training systems of educational in- 
stitutions and social agencies. Both teachers and social 
workers would profit from the devising of some plan 
whereby members of each group might gain experience in 
the field of the other. Many teachers have become social 
workers.^ Social workers would learn much from a period 
of teaching. A sojourn as teacher in a rural school is espe- 
cially commended to the city-trained social worker who 
blithely undertakes "social service" in a country commu- 
nity. University schools of social work and schools of edu- 
cation are beginning to have more to do with each other 

* The Scientific Spirit and Social Work, Chap. 8. 
' See David Holbrook, The Teacher Who Came Back. The Fam,' 
ily, February, 1921. 



176 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

through courses in mental tests and vocational guidance; 
and this cooperation might well be extended. 

In social agencies and institutions themselves, the educa- 
tional value of the "staff meeting" is becoming widely rec- 
ognized. The younger and less experienced workers attend 
these meetings as hearers and reporters of case and field 
data, and learn through actual participation the priceless 
lessons of the small face-to-face group as an instrument 
for checking fact and theory, for "pooling" opinions, and 
for shaping policies and programs. It is hardly less useful 
to workers of long experience. Some social agencies are 
including in their staffs "educational directors" like those 
employed by department stores', public utility companies, and 
other commercial organizations. This is an admirable policy 
where large numbers of young workers are employed, for 
social agencies have been not the least among offenders in 
the matter of exploitation. 

Beginners and workers under supervision serve as case- 
workers, field workers, junior social workers, visitors, 
agents, assistants. They are "learners in service" or "serv- 
ice workers," apprentices or journeymen in the occupation 
of social work. In commercial terminology, they may be 
called the "sales force" of an organization, making the 
actual contacts with individuals or groups. In medical 
terminology, they may be called the "internes" or assistant 
practitioners. It is coming to be expected that they should 
have had at least a year of professional training, and should 
be appointed at first on probation. As in medicine, "case 
work" in theory and practice is fundamental to all forms of 
social work, and is required in the first year of professional 
training, whatever the vocational specialization of the sec- 
ond year. In the past, workers without this training at a 
school have sought to secure it through volunteer or ex- 
tremely low-paid service with "case work agencies," particu- 
larly the "charity organization societies." But this practice 
has depressed standards of training and salary for all social 
workers, and has led to a stream of transient workers in 
these organizations and consequently to an abnormally high 
"labor turnover." ^ Nowadays it is recognized that "fam- 
* See Todd. Chapter 7. The Labor Turnover in Social Agencies. 



SOCIAL SERVICES 177 

ily case work" is a professional field by itself, and that 
general acquaintance with its methods and those of other 
types of case work may preferably be secured as a part of 
supervised practice under the control of the professional 
school. More intensive case work training should be se- 
cured through positions as "learners in service" with agen- 
cies that recognize their educational obligations to their 
workers, and make explicit provisions for training. The 
selection of the agency with which a beginner identifies 
herself is a matter of the highest importance. A list of 
agencies providing valuable training might well be com- 
piled. Such positions should carry a ''scholarship" salary 
of not less than a thousand dollars a year, to avoid all 
danger of exploiting volunteer workers. But they should 
be given only to properly qualified and carefully selected 
persons, and be held for not longer than a year on this 
basis. 

Professional publicity and financial workers are in- 
creasingly employed by social organizations, and the range 
and techniques of such work have been enormously devel- 
oped by the war with its "drives" and "campaigns" for all 
sorts of causes and its innumerable "publicity services" and 
systems of propaganda. Social workers have a moral ob- 
ligation to distinguish clearly between legitimate and illegiti- 
mate uses of these new methods in the furtherance of their 
special activities. There is some difference of opinion as 
to whether social publicity can be best conducted by people 
whose primary training is in journalism and advertising 
with a secondary knowledge of social work or by profes- 
sional social workers who have acquired a knowledge of 
publicity methods and have aptitude in this direction.^ The 
second view seems to be more generally held. Publicity 
and financial workers may be regularly attached to social 
organizations or may be temporarily employed to conduct 
special campaigns. Usually only experienced workers are 
engaged; but social executives are beginning to look for 
promising candidates on their own staffs and to give them 
special opportunities for training. It is reported that the 

'See Clare M. Tousley. Publicity in Case Work. The Family. 
April, 1920. 



178 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

New York School of Social Work is to offer a course in 
social publicity. The Survey has carried the announcements 
of a woman consulting expert in social advertising and of 
several bureaus of social information and finance. 

Social investigators and research workers have never 
been so much in demand, and the number and variety of 
opportunities are likely to increase rather than to diminish. 
The universities and the schools of social work offer courses 
in the techniques of collecting, organizing, and presenting 
social data, including work in statistics and graphics and 
the actual field study of a special problem. The line be- 
tween investigation and research is difficult to draw ; but 
the first term is commonly applied to the collection of data 
in the field under direction ; the second to the planning and 
interpreting the results of an inquiry. Certain social agen- 
cies maintain research departments or exist primarily for 
research ; but the tendency is growing to call in experts 
for special studies and surveys or to have them made un- 
der the auspices of some of the great social foundations. 
The Russell Sage Foundation has its department of sur- 
veys and exhibits, and is inaugurating a study of education 
and training for social work; the Carnegie Foundation has 
recently completed a study of methods of "Americaniza- 
tion"; the Rockefeller Foundation is financing a study of 
education for public health nursing ; the Tuberculosis Asso- 
ciation and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company are 
continuing their tuberculosis study and demonstration in 
Framingham. Directors of social research are persons of 
long training and wide reputation ; but young workers may 
gain invaluable experience as investigators and assistants. 
Opportunities both permanent and temporary may be found 
under the federal government, especially in the Children's 
Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and also in 
state and city departments. They are also to be found 
with many voluntary social organizations and to an increas- 
ing extent with other organizations concerned with the so- 
cial aspects of their own activities. Social statisticians 
form a recognized group. Directors and preparers of 
social exhibits stand on the border-line of social research 
and social publicity. 



SOCIAL SERVICES 179 

The whole matter of methods of securing employment 
and workers is now under active consideration in the field 
of social work as in other fields. The National Social 
Workers' Exchange in New York, established in 19 17 and 
maintained on a cooperative basis by social agencies and 
individual social workers, is doing much to reduce waste- 
ful and haphazard methods, and is working out provisions 
for information, job analysis, and recruiting, as well as 
for placement. The schools of social work and the ap- 
pointment bureaus of colleges and universities take an 
active interest in securing positions for their gradu- 
ates. The bureaus of occupations for trained women are 
of assistance. Social agencies are establishing well organ- 
ized personnel bureaus, cooperating with educational insti- 
tutions and professional employment agencies. These 
bureaus are attempting to study systematically their em- 
ployment needs and requirements, to reduce their labor 
turnover, and to develop higher standards among social 
organizations with respect to the taking of workers from 
one another.^ There is still room for individual appHca- 
tion backed by a good preliminary letter asking for an in- 
terview. Occasionally positions are secured by advertise- 
ments in the Survey and other periodicals read by social 
executives. Common standards to be applied to the recruit- 
ing of young workers through the colleges are still to be 
worked out. In this matter, the Intercollegiate Community 
Service Association and the National Social Workers' Ex- 
change are cooperating. 

The salary situation in social work is at present as acute 
as in teaching, and is similarly under active discussion, in- 
quiry, and revision. In such a period of fluctuation, it is 
impossible to make statements of any permanent validity. 
But here, as in all salaried occupations, the pressure of the 
high cost of living is forcing salaries upward and leading 
to much needed drafting of salary schedules and working 
out of just and public systems of promotion. In the larger 
cities, where social workers have been concentrated, their 
salaries have as a rule been even lower than those of teach- 

* See Joanna C. Colcord. On the Hiring Line. The Family. 
April, 1920. 



i8o WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 



ers in the same place; in many cases, well below a living 
wage. It must be admitted, however, that their professional 
equipment has often likewise been lower. In both teaching 
and social work, low salary standards are an index of im- 
perfect professional development. 

Several investigations of salaries paid in social work have 
recently been made. In the Minneapolis study already men- 
tioned, carried on during the last four months of 1918, the 
median salary for 87 men was found to be $1,842.85; for 
302 women, $966. Forty-two and three-tenths per cent of 
the men received $2,000 and over ; one and five-tenths per 
cent of the women. Only twenty women received $1,600 
and over, while 248 or over 82 per cent received less than 
$900. A comparison of the salaries of social workers, 
teachers, and librarians in Minneapolis showed that in 1918 
29.3 per cent of social workers received less than $900; 17.2 
per cent of public school teachers ; and 42.6 per cent of 
pubHc librarians. On the other hand, 8.9 per cent of social 
workers received over $2,100 as against 1.85 per cent of 
teachers and i per cent of librarians. Since these figures 
were reported both teachers and librarians have received 
increases of salary. 

The study of expenditures and salaries of case workers 
made by the National Society for Organizing Family Social 
Work during the first six months of 1919^ covered ninety- 
seven workers, presumably all women, from various parts 
of the country. The figures are too small to warrant general 
conclusions. The median yearly salary was $970.56. Thir- 
ty-nine college graduates received a median yearly salary of 
$1,010; 15 graduates of schools of social work a median sal- 
ary of $1,275. Reports of yearly expenditure showed that 
only those who lived at home or were graduates of schools of 
social work earned more than they spent. The median 
yearly expenditure, $1,114.32, is slightly lower than the 
dreary minimum budget of $1,151.15 estimated by the Bu- 
reau of Labor Statistics as sufficient to maintain a woman 
government clerk at a "level of health and decency." ^ 

More encouraging are studies made by the New York 

* The Family. March and April, 1920. 
^Monthly Labor Review. January, 1920. 



SOCIAL SERVICES i8i 

School of Social Work ^ of recent salaries received by its 
graduates. In 1918 the average salary for men and women 
together was $1,500; in 1919, half of the salaries reported 
were $1,800 and over. Men graduates reporting salaries 
in 1919 show a salary range of from $1,700 to $6,000 with 
only one case at either extreme and over two-thirds at 
$3,000 or more. Forty women graduates show a salary 
range of from $840 to $3,700 with only three receiving 
less than $1,200 and twelve receiving $2,000 and more. 
Of thirty-two women graduates of the two-year course since 
1913, only five received initial salaries of less than $1,000. 
The fourteen initial salaries received in 1918 and their in- 
creases in 1919 are as follows, the second figure represent- 
ing the salary received in 1919: $1,020-$ 1,500; $1,080- 
$1,770; $1,200-$ 1,320; $1,200-$ 1, 400; $1,200-$ 1, 500; 
$1,200-$ 1, 500; $1,200-$ 1, 500; $1,200-$ 1, 800; $1,200-$ 1, 800; 
$1,200-$ 1, 800; $i,35o-$i,5oo; $1,500-$ 1,800; $i,56o-$2,6oo; 
$2,400-$3,7oo. 

The committee reporting on the salaries of social case 
workers recommended in September, 1919, that a case 
worker who has had one year at a school of social work of 
recognized standing or its equivalent should receive an in- 
itial salary of at least a hundred dollars a month, and that 
increases in the monthly salary amounting tO' at least ten 
dollars should be granted automatically at six months' in- 
tervals until a definite maximum is reached. The Minne- 
apolis report recommends that "a maximum probationary 
period should be determined, after which all workers 
should be paid at least a living wage . . . and distinctions 
should be drawn between volunteer, probationary, scholar- 
ship, and permanent positions, and none but trained workers 
should be appointed to permanent positions." It also recom- 
mends that conditions of work should be standardized, the 
policy of equal pay for equal work should be adopted, and 
objective standards for determining efficiency should be 
devised as a basis for promotion. 

The Bureau of Jewish Social Research has likewise con- 
ducted an inquiry into salaries of workers in Jewish social 
agencies; and the Association of Employed Officers of the 

* General Announcement (1920-1921). 



i82 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Young Women's Christian Associations has made a com- 
parative study of the salaries and expenditures of its 
members and of women in other professional groups.^ The 
present salary ranges in the Association are from $i,8oo to 
$3,000 for the staff of the National Board; from $1,200 to 
$2,500 for local general secretaries, with the median from 
$1,600 to $1,800; from $1,200 to $1,800 for industrial sec- 
retaries, with the median $1,300 or $1,400; from $1,500 to 
$1,800 for directors of international institutes, working 
with foreign women and girls; from $1,200 to $1,600 for 
workers in the girls' work department, with the large ma- 
jority at $1,200. These last positions are looked upon to 
some extent as training for other departments. Technical 
workers with training in other fields, such as physical and 
recreation directors, cafeteria managers, etc., are paid at 
approximately current rates. These salaries are likely to 
be revised upward in the near future. Salary ranges for 
women in the Home Service Section of the American Red 
Cross have been from $1,200 to $3,000 a year. Super- 
visors receive from $1,200 to $2,000 ; instructors from $1,500 
to $2,100. During the war, the War and Navy Depart- 
ments' Commission on Training Camp Activities paid the 
workers in its section for women and girls, later attached 
to the Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board, from $1,500 
to $3,500. District supervisors received $2,500; local work- 
ers, $1,800; local assistants, $1,500. 

Fifty social workers of various types, not including those 
dealt with in preceding chapters, filled our schedules during 
1918 and 1919. The salaries reported do not represent 
the most recent advances, although some of them show the 
higher levels reached in the war-emergency services. They 
range for all groups from $840 to $6,000, with a median 
salary of $1,800, and include workers in all sections of 
the country, although the majority are in the East. Of the 
fifty workers, 18 are general executives — superintendents 
of institutions, directors and executive secretaries of or- 
ganizations with a salary range of from $1,320 to $6,000 
and a median salary of $2,300; 11 are departmental execu- 
tives with a salary range of from $1,200 tO' $3,000 and a 

* Unpublished. 



SOCIAL SERVICES 183 

median salary of $1,800; three are field supervisors, with a 
salary range of from $1,800 to $2,500 and a median salary 
of $1,800; 12 are case workers and field workers — proba- 
tion and parole officers, policewomen, juvenile court and 
child welfare visitors, school visitors, family visitors — with 
a salary range of from $840 to $1,800 and a median salary 
of $1,200; 4 are teachers and editors in schools of social 
work with a salary range of from $1,500 to $4,000 and a 
median salary of $1,650; two are research workers on so- 
cial problems with salaries of $1,800 and $3,000 respec- 
tively. 

Grouped by types of social service and including all 
grades of worker in each type, 8 are in family case-work — 
charity organization societies, public departments of charity, 
and Red Cross home service — with a salary range of from 
$960 to $3,000 and a median salary of $1,885; 5 ^^^ i" 
children's work with a salary range of from $1,200 to $2,500 
and a median salary of $2,000; 13 are in correctional and 
protective work with a salary range of from $840 to 
$3,500 and a median salary of $1,800; 9 are in work with 
women and girls — Girl Scouts, Young Women's Christian 
Associations, League of Women Workers — with a salary 
range of from $1,200 to $6,000 and a median salary of 
$1,800; 5 are in vocational guidance and school visiting 
work, including psychological testing of school children, 
with a salary range of from $900 to $3,000 and a median 
salary of $1,200; 4 are in settlement work with a salary 
range of from $1,000 to $2,500- and a median salary of 
$1,300; 7 are in educational, publicity, or research work 
with a salary range of from $1,500 to $4,000 and a median 
salary of $1,800. Fourteen hold positions under public 
departments, federal, state, or municipal, with a salary range 
of from $840 to $3,500 and a median salary of $1,800. 
These include four women under the federal Interdepart- 
mental Social Hygiene Board; a superintendent of a state 
industrial school for girls and a visitor of paroled girls 
from a similar institution ; a supervisor of mother's aid 
under a state board of charity ; a city overseer of the poor ; 
two executive secretaries of a city board of children's guar- 
dians and a city juvenile commission respectively; a pro- 



i84 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

bation officer in a city court of domestic relations; and 
three policewomen at regular police salaries. 

Some of the comments are as follows : "Have an ability 
to get along with people and to put over programs." 

"Learn to do one thing better than anybody else can do 
it. Become an expert. Don't be a blind alley worker." 

"Cultivate a passion for facts ; never lose your sympathy 
for all that is human; get much satisfaction out of seem- 
ingly small successes ; have a hobby outside of social work ; 
don't live with other social workers." 

"Social work needs women of high intelligence coupled 
with balance, good judgment, a sense of humor, and com- 
mon sense." 

"See life in the large rather than in the small, or you will 
waste your time in petty work rather than doing the 'large 
job' to be done." 

"Do not expect to become a social worker over-night." 

"Train for it ! 'A sweet Christian character and a mother 
herself are inadequate qualifications." 

"If you want a peaceful routine life, stay out of it. If 
you want an opportunity to exercise initiative, to work hard, 
there is no better place. The better your education, the 
better you will succeed." 



CHAPTER XI 

PERSONNEL SERVICES 

Personnel service is a term which came into wide- 
spread use during the war, to a considerable extent taking 
the place of the term employment management, with which 
we were just becoming familiar. Still other terms are 
being adopted, so that parallel departments in industrial, 
commercial and other organizations are entitled employment 
departments, personnel departments, service departments, 
and industrial relations departments. This last term is 
favored by large corporations as covering all activities hav- 
ing to do with employees, including employment, transfer 
and promotion, wage-setting, testing and training, health 
and safety, restaurant and recreation facilities, housing and 
transportation of workers, collective bargaining and shop 
government. The term personnel is equally inclusive, if less 
explicit; with a stronger emphasis upon the human and 
psychological elements involved. The further fact that 
identical terms are used in different senses by different firms 
shows that the movement is still in process of organization 
and development, and leads to a good deal of popular mis- 
conception. But personnel service is a significant manifesta- 
tion of the new spirit in industry and the growing under- 
standing of the psychology of human group relationships.^ 

Employment or personnel management has been so widely 
heralded as a *'new profession for women" that it is the 
part of wisdom to begin this chapter with a solemn warning 
that it requires far more of its practitioners than a "natural 
liking for people" and a few undergraduate courses in 

^ See Ordway Tead and Henry C. Metcalf. Personnel Adminis- 
tration (1920). Employment Management Series. Federal Board 
for Vocational Education. Eight Bulletins (1920). 

185 



i86 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 



"labor problems'' and psychology, important and even nec- 
essary as these are. But they must be supplemented by 
rigorous special training and practical experience of a kind 
new to most women. There are few opportunities for 
beginners ; and women must realize that both for the sake 
of the profession and for the sake of the perman.ent posi- 
tion of women within it, those who enter it to-day should 
do so with a clear understanding of its character and a 
strong sense of their professional responsibilities and obliga- 
tions. It is no place for women seeking merely novelty and 
adventure. 

In spite of these warnings, personnel service offers a real 
and growing opportunity to young women of vigorous and 
unsentimental personality, resourcefulness, and determina- 
tion. It has to do with the promotion of satisfactory human 
relations, the adjustment.of difficulties and grievances, and 
the maintenance of proper standards of working and living 
— matters with which women are supposed to be especially 
qualified to deal. While there is a tendency to employ 
women personnel managers in connection with women 
workers — of whom there are now between eleven and twelve 
millions in the United States, eight million of them between 
fourteen and twenty-one years of age — there are women 
successfully handling departments dealing with both men 
and women and even with men alone. Here as elsewhere, 
the really determining factor should be ability to do the 
work and not sex. There are various "substitute" or 
"allied" occupations through which women may test their 
aptitude for personnel work, as well as training courses of 
a professional type, including practice work, and opportuni- 
ties to gain experience as apprentices or learners in service. 
A period as an actual factory operative, saleswoman, or 
clerk is fundamental to a real understanding of the workers 
to be dealt with. Some of this experience may be gained 
during summer vacations. 

The word "personnel," borrowed from the French, is 
applied to the group or groups of workers belonging to a 
given organization, industrial, commercial, governmental, 
social, educational. In a factory or group of factories, it 
may be used with reference to all the workers employed or 



PERSONNEL SERVICES 187 

be qualified in such ways as shop personnel, office personnel, 
sales personnel. During the war, the federal departments 
and the great auxiliary organizations like the American Red 
Cross, the War Camp Community Service, the two Chris- 
tian Associations, and other national religious societies, all 
had personnel departments or bureaus or services. The 
Report of the Congressional Joint Commission on Reclassi- 
fication of Salaries urges that the Federal Civil Service 
Commission be made in an adequate sense a central per- 
sonnel agency for the government. Department stores, 
insurance and telephone companies, banks — all sorts of 
organizations employing large numbers of people — are 
establishing special personnel departments and studying 
their own personnel requirements and problems. 

Just what is involved in the occupation or profession of 
personnel management? Dr. Edward D. Jones^ says that 
it is chiefly a question of the intelligent handling of the 
human relations which result from the normal course of 
business day by day, and calls it a departure in business 
practice. "Hitherto, executive control in business has been 
exercised through three main divisions of administration: 
(i) Finance — in charge of a treasurer or president. 
(2) Manufacturing — in charge of a general manager or 
general superintendent. (3) Sales — in charge of a sales 
manager. To these three divisions industrial enterprise is 
now adding a fourth, i. e., employment management or, as 
it is sometimes called, supervision of personnel. In the 
employment department of a business are gathered all those 
activities which have to do with the human relations. To 
bring all these matters together under one head, and provide 
each subsection with specialists is a great step toward 
scientific industrialism." 

So comprehensive a description explains the present 
tendency to abandon the term "employment" in favor of the 
terms "personnel" or "industrial relations." The func- 
tions of a modern personnel department include far more 
than mere "hiring and firing" even according to the most 

^Employment Management: Its Rise and Scope. Employment 
Management Series No. i. (1919.) Federal Board for Vocational 
Education. 



i88 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

enlightened methods. In addition to the provision of 
proper working conditions and other provisions for the 
maintenance of efficiency and morale, it is constantly study- 
ing methods and results as they affect the workers, and thus 
is committed to research.^ But it must be admitted that in 
many organizations the coordination of all personnel activi- 
ties under one department does not yet exist. Side by side 
and more or less independent and overlapping are to be 
found employment departments, "service" or ''welfare" 
departments, health departments, adjustment departments, 
planning or "scientific management" departments. Some of 
these came into existence long before "industrial experi- 
ence" had "proved the advantage of a separate department 
to deal with questions of personnel" ; some of them are only 
partly concerned with questions of personnel. Many 
"welfare departments" are still conducted on a philanthropic 
and paternalistic basis, and are distrusted and resented by 
the workers, who have had small share in planning or 
directing the enterprises designed for their benefit. Rightly 
or wrongly, they are looked upon as an effort on the part 
of the management to make people contented with low 
wages and unsatisfactory working conditions. The dislike 
felt for the terms "welfare work" and "social work" is a 
sign that such work has frequently been unwisely handled, 
and is in itself a strong argument for not regarding person- 
nel work in any of its subdivisions as a form of "social 
Service," fundamentally social though it be in the larger 
-ense. It must be looked upon by the workers as a part 
of just and enlightened management, free from any taint 
of charity or patronage. Similarly, the earlier type of 
"scientific management" in the form of time, motion, and 
fatigue studies aroused the deep suspicion of the workers 
as tending to their exploitation. Modern "job analysis" 
and all forms of mental and occupational testing must be 
carried on with sympathetic understanding of personnel 
psychology. 

These considerations raise the question of the relations 
of the manager of the personnel department to the manage- 

^ See Tead and Metcalf . Personnel Administration, Part VI. 
Research. 



PERSONNEL SERVICES 189 

ment of an enterprise on the one hand and to the workers in 
that enterprise on the other. He is in a pecuHar sense an 
intermediary between the two, and is intimately concerned 
with the maintenance of "group morale." To do this, he 
must have the confidence of both the staff and the rank and 
file. The whole matter is bound up with the larger question 
of the participation of labor in management. It is likely 
that he will be in some way jointly selected by management 
and employees, or that at least his appointment will be 
approved by representatives of the workers. Dr. Jones 
says: "Employment supervision represents a movement in 
the direction of the democratic shop, in which a voice is 
given to labor in determining working conditions." The 
personnel manager and his staff are an essential element in 
the working out of systems of ''functionalized foreman- 
ship," shop committees, collective bargaining, and labor 
adjustment. His weight as a member of the managerial 
staff and his relations with the planning, production, and 
sales departments still vary greatly in different organiza- 
tions. 

In view of the wide differences at present in the scope, 
function, and importance of personnel departments, and 
the popularity of the term, it is necessary for women con- 
sidering positions in particular departments to find out what 
they actually stand for; what are their relations to service 
and welfare activities, to ''scientific management," and to 
problems of labor adjustment and representation. It is 
likewise important for women going into "industrial wel- 
fare" positions as cafeteria managers, club and recreation 
leaders, physicians, nurses, or public health workers, 
"Americanization" workers, educational directors, garden 
supervisors, home visitors, to find out in advance whether 
such work is carried on through the personnel department 
and with the cooperation of the workers, or occupies a 
detached and more or less anomalous position. 

It has been pointed out that personnel management is on 
one side an outgrowth of scientific management and cost 
accounting, leading to the discovery of the high cost of labor 
"turnover" or change in the personnel of workers, with a 
resulting expense estimated at from $25 to $75 per persor 



I90 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

and on the other, of the workmen's compensation and 
''safety first" movements, which have revealed the extent 
to which accidents are due to the ignorance, the fatigue, 
or the general dissatisfaction of the worker.^ In a larger 
sense it gathers up and applies to concrete industrial and 
commercial situations the results of modern developments 
in vocational education, vocational guidance, applied psy- 
chology, and public health. It has before it the task of 
modifying and mitigating the withering human results of 
excessive specialization of labor.^ The personnel manager 
"works ... to cut down accidents, reduce fatigue, and cure 
antagonism of mind. As a hiring officer he has an oppor- 
tunity to make vocational guidance more definite than it 
has yet been, because he can supplement the analysis of the 
individual with a parallel analysis of jobs. He has a 
powerful motive for competence in industrial training work, 
for he graduates his pupils in rather than out. His stu- 
dents benefit from the psychology of doing real work for 
pay in a real shop." ^ 

Personnel managers were in great demand during the 
war, when "the competitive struggle was chiefly to save 
time." Under ordinary conditions it is rather "to reduce 
costs." But the financial saving of a smaller labor turnover 
and the increase in production due to well selected and 
satisfied workers have been so abundantly demonstrated that 
personnel management has become a firmly established and 
widely recognized profession. There is every prospect of 
a permanent business expansion in the United States ; and 
with the growing numbers of women in industrial, clerical, 
and professional occupations and the honorable records of 
certain women personnel managers in dealing with men as 
well as women employees, there seems no reason to doubt 
that personnel service will be a widening field for competent 
women, although there has been a temporary shrinkage 
from the war-time demand. An intensive study of women 
already in the field and of the distribution of openings is 
greatly needed. 

* Employment Management Series No. i. Federal Board. 
'Carleton H. Parker. The Technique of American Industry. 
Atlantic Monthly. January, 1920. 



PERSONNEL SERVICES 191 

The war-emergency intensive courses in employment man- 
agement given at various universities under the auspices of 
the War Industries Board and cooperating government 
departments did much to develop standards and techniques 
of professional training for personnel services, although 
they were only eight weeks in length and admitted only 
persons with previous industrial experience and sent by 
the firms with which they were connected. A preliminary 
"shop practice" course was given at Cleveland for people 
without this experience, and was attended by about fifty 
people, mostly women. Women attended many of the 
regular courses, and a woman was director of the course 
given by the University of Washington. Bryn Mawr Col- 
lege likewise offered a graduate course of eight months' 
academic work and three months' shop practice in indus- 
trial supervision and employment management, making 
practice arrangements with a number of large industries 
and commercial establishments in the East. It is continuing 
and developing this course on a permanent basis. Univer- 
sities and schools of business administration are offering 
more extended courses in personnel management, in- 
dustrial management, and applied psychology, including 
the various types of mental tests, as well as fundamental 
courses in economics and sociology essential to a student 
preparing to enter this field. Many of these courses in- 
clude observation and shop practice, sometimes of a reg- 
ular apprentice character. A Bureau of Personnel Admin- 
istration, offering training courses, was established in New 
York in 1920. There is a large and growing litera- 
ture on the subject, and much discussion. In 1919, 
the various local associations of employment managers 
formed the National Association of Employment Managers 
open to quahfied men and women, which has already held 
two largely attended conventions. It issues a monthly 
publication entitled Personnel, and has recently changed 
its name to the Industrial Relations Association. Manv of 
the men and women who were organizers of personnel work 
on a large scale during the war have established themselves 
as personnel and management consultants. Organizations 
all over the country are calling upon these firms to inau- 



192 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

gurate or reconstruct personnel departments. Women inter- 
ested in preparing for personnel services have therefore 
full access to information and training and many ways ot 
discovering their qualifications for the work. 

It is not easy to list these qualifications beyond the es- 
sential ones of courage, a sense of justice, resourcefulness, 
and a practical everyday kind of democracy, together witl 
adequate training. Dr. Jones says : *'To summarize the 
matter of qualifications we give the relative weights 
which a number of successful employment managers 
have agreed upon for five principal factors: Per- 
sonality, 35 per cent; General industrial experience, 25 
per cent; Executive experience, 20 per cent; Shop expe- 
rience (for employment managers in manufacturing estab- 
lishments), 15 per cent; Experience with organized social 
movements, 5 per cent." ^ This enumeration makes no men- 
tion of education, although high standards in this respect 
are everywhere emphasized. The growth of personnel re- 
search, either by individual firms, by firms of consultants, 
or by joint service bureaus such as the Retail Research 
Association, which has its personnel division, creates a de- 
mand for persons with advanced academic and professional 
equipment along research lines, including statisticians and 
psychologists. The various bureaus of a thoroughly organ- 
ized personnel department — ''employment proper, adjust- 
ment, medical service and compensation, education, social 
service, safety, records" — likewise call for persons of spe- 
cial qualifications. ^ 

With regard to so new a profession it is not easy to make 
statements either about modes of securing employment nor 
about salaries. Positions are probably most frequently se- 
cured through institutions giving special training, through 
recommendation by persons already in the work, and 
through direct application backed by proper evidence of 
fitness. Bureaus of occupations have scattering calls. To 
quote Dr. Jones again : "At present the salaries of em- 
oloyment managers — the great majority of which probably 

* Employment Management. Federal Board for Vocational Edu- 
cation. Opportunity Monograph No. 12 (1919). 
'Employment Management Series No. i. Federal Board (1920). 



PERSONNEL SERVICES 193 

fall between $2,000 and $5,000 — are not equal to those com- 
manded by sales managers and production engineers of 
equal ability. This discrepancy is due partly to the recent- 
ness of the function and to its more subtle and indirect re- 
lations to the profit-making process." ^ A firm of personnel 
consultants writes : 'The ordinary employment manager 
receives from $3,000 to $5,000, while men of real ability 
earn from $5,000 to $25,000." At present more women are 
assistant employment managers, for the most part in charge 
of women workers, than are heads of employment or per- 
sonnel departments, and consequently receive lower sal- 
aries. They have commonly had far less first-hand indus- 
trial or commercial experience than men, and many of them 
are still in the position of learners in service or subordinate 
service workers. They are for the most part young college 
women who have taken one or other of the war-emergency 
courses. It is highly important for women just at this time 
in a new profession to measure themselves by the best 
standards not only with respect tO' salaries but with respect 
to preparation, experience, and responsibilities assumed. 

Of thirty-eight organizations filling our employers' sched- 
ule, twenty are industrial, eleven commercial, and seven so- 
cial or educational. Twenty-two report unmistakable per- 
sonnel departments; six, apparent departments; and ten, 
no departments. Seventeen out of the twenty industrial 
firms, which include some of the largest and most pro- 
gressive in the East and the Middle West, have departments, 
the heads of which describe themselves variously as em- 
ployment manager, personnel secretary, service secretary, 
manager of employment and service department, manager 
of industrial relations department. Five managers report- 
ing are women. The industries include firms manufactur- 
ing chemicals, clothing, food products, metal products, opti- 
cal products, paper products, and a large mail-order house 
doing both manufacturing and merchandising. The four 
commercial personnel departments are in department stores, 
banks, and a great public utility system. Of the educational 
and social organizations, the American Red Cross has a 

^Employment Management. Federal Board for Vocational Edu- 
cation. Opportunity Monograph No. 12 (1919). 



194 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

central personnel service having to do chiefly with clerical 
workers and special personnel services in its several depart- 
ments and divisions. A great middle western charities or- 
ganization reports that the assistant superintendent has 
functions similar to those of an employment manager. 

Of twenty-three women filling our schedules and doing 
work directly connected with the employees in industrial 
or commercial establishments, seven are in factories; four 
are in commercial houses ; two are with a consulting and a 
research organization respectively; one, formerly director 
of an industrial employment and service department, is 
now an independent consultant; the remaining ten are 
"welfare workers" outside of an organized personnel 
service or "educational directors" in department stores. 
These last two groups are dealt with in Chapters XII 
and XIII. 

In the industrial group salaries range from $1,500 to 
$3,000, with a median salary of $1,846. This group includes 
the personnel director of a large eastern book manufactur- 
ing establishment, the superintendent of the employment 
and service department of an Ohio clothing factory, the 
chief of the "women's department of the employment di- 
vision of the industrial relations branch" of a great Illinois 
company manufacturing electric equipment, two employ- 
ment managers in Pennsylvania knitting and stocking fac- 
tories, an assistant to the employment secretary in an Ohio 
rubber company, and a personnel secretary for office work- 
ers in a New York watch manufacturing company. These 
women are all college graduates, several with advanced de- 
grees. Three have had the Bryn Mawr course in industrial 
supervision and employment management. Five are of re- 
cent college classes, taking their positions in 1919. Two 
have been in personnel work since 191 3, and have helped 
tO' establish it as a profession. 

Several advise direct application and personal interviews 
as the best methods of securing employment. Others advise 
using bureaus of occupations. The superintendent of em- 
ployment in a notably well organized men's clothing factory 
says: "Apply for an apprenticeship course, which involves 
learning all the operations in the manufacture of men's 



PERSONNEL SERVICES 195 

clothing and occupying executive positions in various de- 
partments of the factory." 

Other comments and advice are as f ollov^s : "The poH- 
cies of my employer with regard to the employment of 
women are very liberal. Eighty per cent of the employees 
are vi^omen, some in positions of considerable responsibil- 
ity. An employees' representative committee is being con- 
templated." 

''My employers are progressive in methods of production, 
conservative in policies affecting employees. Because of 
the size and functionalization of the work, I should advise 
a beginner to get her first or early experience with a small 
organization where work is less routine and broader." 

"The fact that an employment department was started is 
proof of at least some progressive ideas. I should advise 
women entering this work to know as much about the labor 
and general policies of the firm as possible. Make the firm 
'qualify' as well as yourself." 

"The firm is progressive because of broad knowledge of 
industrial problems and fearlessness in trying out experi- 
ments. They have a very broad policy with regard to the 
employment of women. About one-half of the foremen in 
the production, instruction, and inspection departments are 
women. I advise actual experience for at least a year in 
the industry to be chosen as a field for employment work, 
wide reading on industrial problems and economics, and 
development of a healthy body." 

"I consider my employers' policies progressive because 
they keep ahead of both the economic and social trends. 
... I was acting 'works manager' during the war, and 
still retain some of the duties. ... I advise women consid- 
ering personnel work to enter actual factory work for six 
months or a year and not to consider salary as of more 
value than the opportunity to work." 

"Be tactful. Don't give any one the impression that you 
know more than they do. Don't expect to reform the fac- 
tory in a day." 

The statements of duties show the range and coordinat- 
ing character of modern personnel departments. The ques- 
tion arises, however, whether the amount of direct "welfare 



196 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

work" put upon women personnel managers may not be to 
the detriment of their personnel work proper. Supervision 
of welfare activities is one thing; actual recreation work, 
home visiting, and so forth, is another. The answer prob- 
ably depends upon the size of the factory and the stage of 
development of the personnel department; but statements 
like the following suggest too great a range of detail : 

"I employ all workers ('fire' when necessary) ; handle 
complaints and cases of discipline; supervise medical work, 
lunch room, recreations, etc." 

*T hire all workers ; do first-aid work, safety work, ab- 
sentee visiting, recreational work, all things pertaining to 
welfare." 

"I do hiring, follow-up, and transfer of employees, and 
look after their general welfare." 

Other statements refer more directly to personnel super- 
vision : 

The service secretary of a metal products plant says : "I 
am given a good deal of authority, do all the employing of 
men and women in the mill and office, and have a good 
deal to say about rate-setting, promotion, etc. My assistant 
is trained to take my place at any time. The nurse also 
has a good deal of authority in admitting to work people 
who have been out sick and in regulating the cleanliness, 
ventilation, and improvements in the mill; and it is now 
possible that the woman who is assistant in our production 
department will be given full charge of the production 
work in this plant, which is a position of considerable re- 
sponsibility." 

An assistant industrial relations manager in the footwear 
department of a large rubber corporation says in filling out 
an employers' schedule for her firm: "There are four 
women assistant industrial relations managers. They (and 
other women in executive and technical positions) have 
gone through our Planning Department School, in which 
they have roade process analyses of different operations 
connected with footwear manufacturing. In addition they 
have learned how to make rubber shoes." The list of 
women taking this course includes besides the industrial re- 
lations managers fourteen nurses, one dietitian, six women 



PERSONNEL SERVICES 197 

in the instruction department, and one scientific manage- 
ment worker. 

An "associate consultant" in a recently established firm 
of consultants in industrial relations says : "I do research, 
and am held in readiness to do field work, i. e., installing 
employment departments and providing a labor policy for 
factories. People going into this work should take as much 
graduate work in social economics as possible and work in 
factories for several years. When they have done this, no 
concrete advice will be necessary." 

A recent study of women in executive and technical po- 
sitions in 250 factories in and about New York City^ dis- 
closed one personnel director, one employment manager for 
all help except in the office, 26 employment managers for 
women help, and 25 assistant employment managers, be- 
sides 23 welfare workers, 4 doctors, 80 nurses, 11 instruct- 
ors, 19 lunchroom managers, and 58 matrons. 

In the commercial group salaries range from $1,560 tO' 
$2,080, and have undoubtedly risen since reported. A study 
of opportunities for women in department stores made in 
1920 ^ finds the salaries of employment managers ranging 
from $1,760 to $3,380 with a median salary of $2,190; of 
assistant employment managers, from $1,200 tO' $2,340, with 
a median salary of $1,500. Our group includes three women 
in department stores in Massachusetts, Michigan, and Ohio, 
and a research worker in a New York bureau of retail re- 
search, maintained by eighteen department stores through- 
out the country. Of the personnel workers, one is called 
"selector of female help"; one, "welfare investigator"; 
one, "employment manager." Three are college graduates, 
one with the Bryn Mawr industrial course ; one was pre- 
pared for college, and served as advertising writer and as- 
sistant buyer for the store before entering the employment 
department. The welfare investigator examines and in- 
structs new employees, follows up and studies their general 

^Executive and Technical Women in Industry: Stirvey of Fac- 
tories, igig-ig20. (Pamphlet.) Young Women's Christian Asso- 
ciation. Employment Department. 

^Positions of Responsibility in Department Store Organizations. 
Bulletin No. 5. Bureau of Vocational Information (1921). 



198 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

efficiency, does home visiting, etc. The employment man- 
ager took her position in 1919 after tv/o years' experience 
in a field office of the United States Employment Service. 
She attends to placement work, transfers, increases in sal- 
ary, and discharges. She considers the policies of her 
employers *Very far above the average," and gives this 
advice : 

''Secure (i) a college education; (2) special training in 
employment management courses; (3) experience in the 
selling and non-selling departments of a store." 

The research worker says : *T investigate and study 
employment departments of stores of our association. This 
includes policies of firm, employment procedures and poli- 
cies, wages, education, and welfare. This work requires 
an interest in people, practical experience in a factory or 
store, and specialized study in the field." 



Closely allied to personnel work with organizations is the 
work of public employment offices or labor exchanges. 
During the war the War Emergency United States Em- 
ployment Service in cooperation with existing state systems 
established a network of nine hundred offices throughout 
the country for the purpose of distributing workers as they 
were most needed for war production and of furnishing 
continuous country-wide reports on the condition of the 
labor market. While this work was inevitably done hastily 
and imperfectly under war-time conditions, and has been 
practically suspended because of the failure of Congress to 
pass legislation and make appropriations establishing a per- 
manent state-federal system of labor exchanges, such a sys- 
tem is essential to the proper organization of a modern 
industrial democracy ; and there is every expectation that 
the United States will not lag far behind such countries as 
Great Britain and Canada in creating a pubHc employment 
service for every group of workers from unskilled to pro- 
fessional. 

With the organization of this system, personnel work in 
public employment offices will become a form of profes- 
sional service comparable to teaching in its social impor- 



PERSONNEL SERVICES 199 

tance, and should attract the best types of young men and 
young women. The success of any such system will de- 
pend primarily upon the character of its personnel ; and it 
must be jealously guarded from becoming the refuge of the 
mediocre or the sphere of petty politics. Public employ- 
ment offices will supplement the efforts of personnel de- 
partments in individual organizations, and will cooperate 
with them in securing and redistributing workers. If 
rightly administered, they should act as a great stabilizing 
and educative agency, reducing unemployment and seasonal 
employment and furnishing authoritative vocational infor- 
mation and practical vocational guidance. 

With the reestablishment of a nation-wide public em- 
ployment service provision will undoubtedly be made for 
the training of its staff of workers, partly through the sys- 
tem itself, partly through cooperation with universities, col- 
leges, and special institutions. The War Emergency Service 
conducted during the winter of 1919 a series of two-weeks 
training conferences for selected members of its field staff, 
which made promising beginnings in this direction. 

But whether personnel services are public or private, they 
involve definite techniques of interviewing, advising, test- 
ing and rating, selecting and placing, following up and in- 
vestigating, that must be made matters of continuous study 
and revision. There are also the techniques of devising 
and using effective forms and statistics. Much is to be 
learned from the specifications for personnel officers pre- 
pared by the Army Committee on Classification of Per- 
sonnel and the procedures of the eleven "personnel schools" 
which it conducted at various camps, and its schools for 
"S. A. T. C." personnel officers and for trade-test officers.^ 
Its specifications and rating scale have been described in 
Chapter III. There is likely to be increasing attention to 
employment psychology in employment offices and personnel 
departments, both to the actual giving of tests and to the 
experimental working out of such tests .^ A research and 

^Personnel System of the D. S. Army. (1919.) Vol. I, Chapter 
30; Vol. II, Chapters 3, 13. 

'Henry C. Link. Employment Psychology (1919). Chapters 1-9, 
14-21. 



200 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

testing laboratory may well become a part of any adequate 
and progressive employment system, although as yet tests 
for determining individual occupational aptitudes are in 
their infancy. The whole matter of interviewing needs to 
be much more thoroughly studied. It can no longer be 
guided merely by good will and an inner light. The National 
Committee of Bureaus of Occupations for Trained Women 
appointed in May, 1919, a special committee on methods and 
techniques, which is planning a careful study of the prac- 
tices and principles of interviewing. The Harvard Bureau 
of Vocational Guidance, the Industrial Relations Associa- 
tion, and other agencies, are likewise actively engaged in 
studying the various problems connected with the training 
of workers for personnel services. 



CHAPTER XII 

INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR SERVICES 

Personnel service is by no means the only type of work 
for professional women in industry, although it is just 
now the most popular. Opportunities of various other 
kinds are developing in industrial corporations and ''plants" ; 
and there are outside organizations which devote them- 
selves to the study of industrial and labor problems and 
to the regulation and improvement of industrial conditions. 

These outside organizations may be classified as : ( i ) 
Voluntary associations of citizens, such as the American 
Association for Labor Legislation and the Consumers' 
League; (2) public departments, boards, and commissions; 
(3) organizations of employers, such as the National Asso- 
ciation of Manufacturers and the National Industrial Con- 
ference Board; and (4) organizations of industrial work- 
ers, such as labor or trade unions. Their aims include the 
bettering of working conditions through publicity, educa- 
tion, and legislation ; the enforcement of legislation through 
inspection and regulation ; the improvement of organization, 
administration, and processes through joint action by the 
employers ; the securing of adequate wages and just and 
stable working conditions through collective action by the 
workers ; research and investigation along all these lines. 
Research bureaus are maintained by private associations 
or foundations ; by federal and state governments ; by bodies 
of manufacturers or individual corporations ; they are be- 
ing established by organized labor. 

Employers have in the past concerned themselves chiefly 
with methods of production and scientific research on ma- 
terials and processes. But the past few years have brought 
some of them to a realization of the importance of con- 
structive labor policies and the maintenance of satisfactory 

201 



202 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

industrial relations. To bring these about, they are setting 
up research and information services and calling for the ex- 
pert advice of industrial engineers and consultants. The 
"labor audit" ^ takes its place beside the ''production chart,' 
the "sales audit" and the "financial audit." Labor adjust- 
ment boards representing management and labor and pre- 
sided over by a chairman acceptable to both groups are 
being established in great industries like the men's clothing 
industry. Elaborate provisions for the training of workers 
in service, like the great "rubber university" in Akron, Ohio, 
are being made. A new type of professionally trained ex- 
ecutive is needed, and plans are being developed for his 
production in larger numbers. A recent bulletin says : "The 
slight role in the management of large enterprises which is 
played by the individual shareholder serves to bring into 
prominence the salaried managerial staff. The professional 
manager has come into existence as a class." ^ Sidney 
Webb's characterization of him has been given on page 
14; and the arrangement by which groups of industries 
are preparing "specifications for managers" for the higher 
educational institutions has been described on pages 45, 

46- . 

Some idea of the range of positions opening to pro- 
fessional women in industrial plants may be gathered from 
the schedules received from industrial employers and from 
women already in such positions. Our employers' schedule 
asked: "Do you employ women in executive, technical, 
or higher clerical positions? Please list below kinds of 
positions held by women ; number of women in each." The 
seventeen firms replying manufacture chemicals, clothing, 
food products, metal products, optical goods, paper prod- 
ucts, rubber products, shoes; and represent New England, 
the middle Atlantic states, and the middle western states. 
Eight report in general that they have women filling execu- 
tive positions ; two, women in technical positions ; three, 
women in higher clerical positions. A metal products firm 

^Ordway Tead. The Labor Audit Employment Management 
Series, No. 8 (1920). H. S. Gantt. Organizing for Work (1919). 

'Alfred B. Rich. The Wage-Setting Process. Employment Man- 
agement Series, No. 5 (1919). 



INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR SERVICES 203 

reports a woman assistant director of the production de- 
partment, who may be placed in full charge of the produc- 
tion work. A woman personnel director served as ''works 
manager" of a book manufacturing establishment during 
the war. A clothing firm reports women heads of divisions 
and women supervisors. Five firms report women foremen. 
Two chemical firms employ women chemists; an optical 
firm has a woman lens designer. Two firms report women 
in their planning departments, one of them employing eight. 
Three have industrial or technical librarians ; one, an editor 
of a "house organ." Three report women in their instruc- 
tion departments. A large rubber corporation employs a 
woman as general director of instruction, six heads of in- 
struction departments in different factories, and a woman 
director of Americanization. This firm puts every woman 
in a responsible position through its "Planning Departm.ent 
School." Eight firms report nurses ; two, directors of lunch- 
rooms ; three, managers or matrons of girls' lodging houses. 
Only one reports a dietitian. Five report secretaries to 
executives; two, chief clerks; two, head file clerks. One 
each reports cost accountants, a head payroll clerk, a head 
bookkeeper. 

To the question, "What experience have you had in 
the employment of college women versus non-college 
women?" one well organized firm replies: "Same as with 
college men — hard for them to get beyond the pe- 
riod of overconfidertce in their superior knowledge of 
a particular job and feel sufficient respect for the knowledge 
of others who have real experience. . . . They need em- 
phasis on work rather than pay and training to expect 
difficulties and rise above them and to respect the work and 
knowledge of those who lack education." 

A progressive firm of shoe manufacturers says : "Col- 
lege women are preferable in the planning and employment 
work. They quickly grasp new problems and learn quickly. 
During the war we employed college women in our planning 
department instead of men. In our planning department 
we have one woman to three men. Operations now open 
to women for the first time will remain open to them. 
Women will always be a poorer risk than men because of 



204 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

the chance of losing the best ones by marriage. We expect 
to lose fifty per cent of college trained women through 
marriage. We estimate that on executive and technical 
work five women equal four men." 

A firm doing a large manufacturing and mail-order busi- 
ness says: "Of the 1,500 people in our office, 1,400 are 
women and 100 are men. Many department heads are 
women, and most of our technical work and higher clerical 
work is done by women. Ninety-nine per cent of our 
women, however, are not college graduates. Our force is 
constantly being searched for people to do the more difficult 
work ; and we have a system of training which prepares for 
the duties of our office. Our clerks spend from two weeks 
to two months in learning our work, and are constantly 
being sent back to our training school for 'development. 
Our average service for women is five and a half years. 
Vacancies are filled by the most capable people obtainable, 
regardless of whether man or woman. The influence of 
the last four years has given women in business a place 
comparable to their position in public school work. We be- 
lieve that business women are as much a fixture as business 
men." 

The employment manager of a large firm manufacturing 
optical goods and cameras says : "On the value of college 
versus non-college women, I do not venture an opinion. 
It seems to me largely an individual question. Some posi- 
tions require college women — others do not. I should ad- 
vise technical training for the majority of cases. A college 
education is helpful for some work, but it requires a per- 
sonality and initiative to make it valuable. . . . Any gener- 
alization upon the relative efficiency of men and women do- 
ing similar work would be misleading. The comparison 
would have to be based upon particular people. Some women 
are more competent than men, and, on the other hand, some 
men are more competent than women. I am under the im- 
pression that the average woman does not stay in the com- 
pany's employ as long as the man, and for the reason that 
the woman w^orks only until she gets married. . . . The 
war has undoubtedly opened up many new fields for the 
employment of women. In the majority of cases I feel that 



INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR SERVICES 205 

women will hold the positions they have obtained through 
the war." 

A woman employment manager in a company manufac- 
turing watches says: "If jobs are properly selected for in- 
terest and suitability, college women are a success. Their 
business keenness is A-i. On the other hand, they are too 
ambitious for many jobs. . . . We do not have any women 
regularly *on the road,' but we have sent some college women 
out for periods of from two weeks to two months to get 
sales experience for our experimental branch work. . . . 
Women need to be impressed with a more serious and far- 
reaching purpose in their attitude and training for positions 
and to make some compromise about employment versus 
marriage or with marriage, or else they will always be con- 
sidered a less safe investment than men because of the 
possibility of loss from matrimony and the lack of real 
ambition for a long period because of the prospect." 

Another woman employment manager in a great rubber 
company says : "We employ men and women in the same 
or comparable positions, but less than five per cent of such 
workers are women. We lack a sufficient number of cases 
upon which to base a comparison of the work of college 
and non-college women. Women going into our higher po- 
sitions need a working knowledge of economics, a broad 
human experience, and an appreciation of professional 
ideals. . . . The war has brought us a step nearer making 
ability and not sex the criterion for determining the indi- 
vidual's fitness for a position." 

Another rubber company says : "College education is 
desirable but not necessary in most of our positions. . . . 
For our office staff we have typewriter and comptometer 
schools, and classes in language, drafting, and so on. . . 
We estimate that the work of three women is equal to that 
of two men. . . . We think that the war has made no ap- 
preciable changes in the employment of women above the 
operative or lower clerical group." 

A firm of manufacturing chemists says: "We employ 
college women as chemists. . . . We employ an equal num- 
ber of men and women, and find their efficiency about the 
same in positions where physical strength is not required. 



2o6 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

As regards persistence, men and women of middle life are 
more dependable. Women, I believe, are as capable as 
men, and more contented. There is an ever increasing field 
foi them." 

On the other hand, a large firm manufacturing paper 
products says : 'Women do not show as much originality 
and initiative as men, and are not as dependable. Men are 
more apt to stay in a given place longer." . 

Within a year, two local studies of professional women 
in industry have been made.^ In May, 1919, the Cleveland 
Bureau of Occupations for Trained Women issued a small 
bulletin entitled ''Opportunities for Trained Women in 
Cleveland Factories," giving the results of personal inter- 
views with officials of 125 factories, representing nine dif- 
ferent industries. Early in 1920, the Employment Depart- 
ment of the Central Branch of the Young Women's Chris- 
tian Association issued a somewhat larger bulletin entitled 
"Executive and Technical Women in Industry," giving the 
results of a study of 250 factories in and about New York 
City employing 100 women or more and representing fifteen 
different industries as well as a number of unclassified es- 
tablishments. Both studies found the largest number of 
women in personnel services, as employment or "welfare" 
managers or assistants, but report others in the production, 
financial, advertising and sales, and research departments. 
In Cleveland, women in responsible positions included the 
general manager of a firm employing twelve hundred men 
in the manufacture of automobile bodies; a production 
supervisor in a large clothing factory; assistant buyers for 
two firms ; a claims agent with entire responsibility for 
settling claims against the company; head cost accountants 
in four factories ; draftsmen in ten ; women in the engineer- 
ing departments of two ; chemists or physicists in the labora- 
tories of six; several designers in clothing factories and 
one in a furniture factory; a decorator in a paint factory, 

* See also the announcement for 1919-1920 of the Carola Woeri- 
shoffer Graduate Department of Social Economy and Social Re- 
search of Bryn Mawr College for lists of industrial positions held 
by its graduates and of cooperating firms. 



INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR SERVICES 207 

giving advice about household decoration ; women adver- 
tising workers in three factories, whose work included the 
preparation of trade catalogues ; trained nurses in all large 
factories and in a number of small ones. In two factories, 
but only two, a trained dietitian was employed in the lunch- 
room. Apprenticeship courses, open to women with col- 
lege training or its equivalent, were found in the three 
largest clothing factories. Apprentices begin as factory 
operatives at practically their wage, and after learning all 
operations thoroughty, which takes usually from six months 
to a year, are promoted to executive positions according 
to aptitude and ability. In all departments of one factory, 
and in some departments of another, none but college 
trained women are given positions as forewomen. They 
have extensive connections with the "service" department 
and more executive responsibility than the average fore- 
women in other plants. In the metal trades, office and 
service positions were the only openings found; but sev- 
eral officials expressed the wish that trained women might 
become interested in this work, in spite of its unattractive- 
ness. 'Two employment managers expressed a desire to 
start in their factories a sort of apprenticeship course for 
women interested enough to see beyond the dirt and mo- 
notony a chance to prove their value for higher positions." 
Of the 250 factories in and about New York City, 31 em- 
ployed no women in responsible positions; 73 employed 
them only as forewomen ; and 146 employed them as ex- 
ecutives other than forewomen. One woman was found 
as director of a firm, one as vice-president, and one as 
mediator between employees and management. There were 
also found nine factory managers, one superintendent of all 
departments, 116 production supervisors, 76 department 
heads, 46 assistant heads, 99 forewomen hiring for their 
own departments, 22 office managers, 15 heads of filing de- 
partments, 2 head statisticians, 12 statisticians, 6 chief ac- 
countants, 9 accountants, 3 advertising managers and one 
assistant manager, 15 publicity workers, editors, special 
writers, and copy writers, 16 artists, one buyer, 2 sales 
executives, 16 saleswomen on the road, 9 chemists, loi de- 
signers, 24 draftsmen, 4 engineers, 17 librarians, assistant 



2o8 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

librarians, and translators, one head of a correspondence de- 
partment and 95 correspondents. 

The report shows that the forewomen found in New 
York factories are mostly of the old type, promoted from 
the ranks of operatives. It advises candidates for executive 
and technical positions not to enter as operatives to gain 
advancement, except on assurance of specific opportunity. 
There seem to be no definite apprentice courses for college 
women, such as are found in Cleveland, although it is 
stated that "the foreman or forewoman is a most important 
link in the chain of production, and employers are beginning 
to call for college or technical training for the forewoman's 
job." The report cites a large candy factory which seeks 
forewomen with a high degree of education and some spe- 
cial training in foods, preferring women of this type to the 
brightest of operators, although operators are frequently 
sent away for the necessary training. It quotes the manager 
of a corset factory as saying: "Send us several college 
graduates for forewomen's jobs. We will give them the 
technical training and the opportunity for advancement." 
Another manager said: "A woman accountant on our 
force became interested in production. As she showed 
marked executive ability, we made her forewoman and 
later department head. The experiment was so successful 
that we have repeated it in numerous cases. The woman 
who' works with figures is more exact in estimating and 
reporting, frequently more impersonal in her dealings with 
the workers, and seems to command a high degree of re- 
spect and cooperation." 

The report shows that the better opportunities exist in 
the larger establishments, and makes it clear that at this 
stage it is highly important for professional women going 
into industry to know the labor policy and system of train- 
ing and promotion of the firm with which they identify 
themselves. It also urges the growing necessity of spe- 
cialized training for executive or technical work in the in- 
dustrial field. 

A group of young college women filling our schedules 
are now serving or have recently served operative appren- 
ticeships in industrial plants in order to qualify for ex- 



INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR SERVICES 209 

ecutive positions. Several of them are under twenty-five, 
and have taken up the work directly after leaving college 
or after brief training or other experience. Salaries re- 
ported are accordingly low, ranging from $936 to $1,500. 
A young woman graduated in 1917 took the Bryn Mawr 
course in industrial supervision for eight months; became 
for three months chief clerk in the record office of a ship- 
building company; and is now in a large thread industry 
''learning the factory operation of quilling in order to take 
charge of the instruction." Another graduated in 191 1 
taught in private and public secondary schools until 1917; 
then entered a large shoe factory ; and in 1918 was executive 
forewoman in the stitching room, where her duties included 
making reports, filing records of operatives, and other cler- 
ical work, also supervision of sanitary arrangements for 
women and some supervision of the women employees of 
the department. She says : *'I am in training for an ex- 
ecutive position. No definite promises were made; but if 
I am big enough the job will grow. I have had some train- 
ing in the educational department of the firm." Her advice 
to other college women is, "Don't mind getting your hands 
dirty." 

Another graduated in 1914; became immediately an ap- 
prentice in a middle western clothing factory for four 
months ; a production foreman for nine months ; instruc- 
tion foreman for three months, and then supervisor of the 
instruction department. She says : *'I plan the work of 
seven instructors who take charge of teaching all new em- 
ployees and transfers of old employees. I do disciplining; 
overseeing of the making up of new models from the de- 
signer and changing methods of handling work on the vari- 
ous operations. ... I took the position with the assurance 
of 'earning more than a school teacher in a year,' and was 
told that the field was a growing one and offered opportu- 
nities. . . . The firm offers to men and women of executive 
ability the opportunity to learn the men's garment trade as 
a preface to foremanship. It employs women wherever 
possible both for executives and operatives. There are no 
differences in the pay and opportunities of men and women. 
Women going into this field should expect to begin from the 



210 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

bottom up. This requires good health, democratic spirit, 
and ability to get along with those higher up and those 
directly under your care. It requires common sense." 

As a result of the enlightened policies of this firm, 
this young woman and others trained by the same firm 
became during the war traveling inspectors and adjusters 
for the War Department board for the inspection of stand- 
ards of army clothing. She is familiar with every opera- 
tion connected with the making of men's clothing. 

Two graduates of 1916 and 191 7 respectively are in the 
planning department of the shoe factory already mentioned. 
One is planning investigator in the sole leather department, 
doing time study and efficiency work; the other is super- 
visor of upper leather planning, and supervises the time 
studies and efficiency work done by four field agents. She 
says that there are twelve men in positions comparable to 
hers, and that there are no differences in the opportunities 
offered to men and women in the planning department. 
The firm adopted an efficiency system in 1904, and was one 
of the first to estabUsh this work on a sound basis. This 
young woman majored in economics and sociology in col- 
lege, and was for a year supervisor of public school music 
in a country town at a salary of $7CX). She says : *T gave 
up supervising music because a broader field was offered to 
me in the business world.'* 

This sort of "efficiency" or "scientific management" work 
does not attract so many women as does employment or 
educational work in factories. But it offers a solid basis 
of fact for either of these types of work, and is likely to 
lead to responsible positions in production or research. It 
is the work done by the "industrial engineer/* and should 
appeal to young women interested in the applications )f 
exact measurements and techniques to the problems of 
industrial production and management. It includes the 
making of time, motion, and fatigue studies, and through 
them the preparation of "job analyses" and the standardiza- 
tion of industrial processes. 

A well-known industrial engineer writes : "We have not 
had a very fortunate experience with inducing professional 
women to take up work in scientific management. Such 



INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR SERVICES 211 

work necessitates always a first-hand knowledge of the 
processes studied ; and even during the stress of war, that 
type of woman — while willing to do any work with her 
hands as a patriotic duty — did not seem to relish the strenu- 
ous apprenticeship necessary to accomplish motion and 
fatigue studies of value. . . . Of course we have trained 
a large number of women for positions in scientific manage- 
ment in many of its branches ; but these came from the 
class of women already at work in the industries, whether 
in the shop or office departments. ... I do not think the 
absence of professional women in the scientific management 
field is in any way due to the unwillingness of the industries 
to admit them. In fact, I believe it is entirely due to the 
unwillingness of the women themselves to go through the 
necessary practical training. . . . We believe that manage- 
ment offers not only an ideal field for the college trained 
woman, but also that experience in the work is a training 
for any other type of activity that a woman wishes to enter 
later, whether in the home or in the so-called 'learned pro- 
fessions.' " 

Scientific management has no doubt been pushed into the 
background by the more spectacular appeal of "employ- 
ment management" and by the natural interest of women 
in personnel activities. But as they become more familiar 
with the inside of factories through serving apprentice- 
ships as operatives and more directly in line for promotion 
to all departments of factory management, it is probable 
that those of mathematical and engineering types of mind 
will turn to this work. It is only through such efficiency 
studies that a solid basis can be established for satisfactory 
"industrial relations." With the millions of women in in- 
dustry it is highly important to^ have women thoroughly 
equipped with regard to scientific and humane principles of 
job and wage setting. Professional women must not be 
put off with an unscientific kind of "personnel service" 
which is only another name for "welfare work," but must 
prepare themselves for an industrial relations service which 
permeates every aspect of factory operation and manage- 
ment. They should look forward to sharing in matters of 
labor adjustment. In 1920 a woman stood first on the 



212 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Illinois Civil Service list for arbitrators, but was refused 
appointment by the State Industrial Board. 



Professional women of many specialized types of train- 
ing are likewise increasingly employed in industrial plants : 
health experts, group feeding experts, psychologists, chem- 
ists, physicists, technologists, advertising experts, cost ac- 
countants, editors of ''house organs," librarians, statisticians, 
and on so on. These are dealt with in appropriate chapters. 

Industrial health service has been enormously developed 
by the war and by the spread of legislation for workmen's 
compensation and the movement for health insurance. 
"Industrial medicine has during the last four years devel- 
oped into one of the leading branches of the medical pro- 
fession. When the American Association of Industrial 
Physicians and Surgeons was organized in 1916, very few 
concerns had an adequate system of health service for their 
employees. Now hundreds of industries are equipped with 
a part or all of the standards demanded by the newer con- 
ception of the health of employees, the medical examina- 
tion of applicants and of the old force, the prevention of 
industrial accidents by industrial hygiene and safety first, 
better medical and surgical treatment for the sick and in- 
jured, compensation and benefits and the relation of this 
human maintenance work to other employees' service depart- 
ments." ^ Two new medical journals, the Journal of In- 
dustrial Medicine and Modern Medicine, are devoted in 
whole or in part to industrial health problems. The United 
States Public Health Service has established a section on in- 
dustrial hygiene, actively cooperating with state departments 
of labor and industry and state departments of health. Two 
states have provided for the rehabilitation of industrial crip- 
ples, and federal legislation on the subject is pending. Eight 
medical schools offer courses in industrial medicine. Har- 
vard and the University of Cincinnati have established 
courses in industrial health with funds contributed by 
groups of manufacturers. Dr. Alice Hamilton, an authority 
on industrial diseases, has been appointed to the Harvard 

* Monthly Labor Review. September, 1919. 



INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR SERVICES 213 

medical faculty. The Boston Psychopathic Hospital has 
led in the study of industrial mental hygiene; and a group 
of experts have been making further investigations in this 
field. Mental clinics are advocated in all industrial cen- 
ters, since industrial maladjustment is a potent cause of 
mental strain and disorder. Women are likely to play an 
increasing part in the industrial health movement, especially 
in factories employing large numbers of women v^orkers, 
not only as physicians, psychiatrists, and public health 
nurses, but as medical and psychiatric social workers, in- 
dustrial hygienists, and physical directors. All these types 
of health worker are discussed in Chapters IV and V. 

Women chemists and physicists were very generally ad- 
mitted to industrial laboratories as testing or research as- 
sistants during the war, and have come to stay. On the 
purely laboratory side they have a chance of reaching po- 
sitions as chief or director ; but as yet they have not entered 
the field of chemical engineering or gone from the labora- 
tory to plant or department management.^ Women have 
been similarly accepted as draftsmen and engineers in cer- 
tain kinds of office engineering, but have only in rare cases 
done work in the field. Scientific and technological workers 
are dealt with in Chapter XVII. 



As a result chiefly of the war, there is a new awareness 
on the part of industrial employers of college and pro- 
fessional women as a source of supply for executive, tech- 
nical, and research positions and a new awareness on the 
part of these women of industrial problems from the inside 
instead of from the outside. We have scarcely begun tO' re- 
alize the psychological and social change involved in having 
the new generation of professional women interested in in- 
dustry go through an apprenticeship as operatives as a mat- 
ter of course rather than as a rare and exciting sociological 
adventure. One of the first young college women to reach 
an executive post in a factory through beginning at the 
bottom reported with humor that her grandmother was hor- 

* See The Woman Chemist. Bulletin No. 4. Bureau of Voca- 
tional Information (1921). 



214 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

rified, her mother puzzled but acquiescent, and her brother 
enthusiastic over her course. The contacts thus made, the 
understandings achieved, the friendships formed, vi^ill be 
an asset in working out the more democratic industrial 
relations of the future. Undergraduates of to-day expect 
no concessions on the ground that they are women, and talk 
in a matter-of-fact way of spending their vacations working 
in a factory. What is more, they do it, and find their own 
"jobs." Such a use of the last two summer vacations of 
the college course is coming to be an accepted mode of 
acquiring pre-professional industrial experience. From 
"the college woman in industry" may be developed its corol- 
lary, "the industrial woman in college," and arrangements 
may be worked out whereby women operatives of ability 
and promise may be given the chance for college courses 
and college contacts. Tests of capacity for college work 
might well be worked out along the lines of those devised 
for admission to the "Students' Army Training Corps." 
The college would profit as much as the industrial woman. 
Plans for something of the sort are in the air, and it has 
already been done on a small scale by the school for active 
workers of the Women's Trade Union League. 

The mutual enlightenment of industrial employers and 
professional women was furthered conspicuously during 
the war by the "Women's Branch of the Industrial Service 
Section of the Production Division of the Ordnance Office 
of the War Department" — an example of the horrors of 
official nomenclature — which under the direction of Miss 
Mary Van Kleeck of the Industrial Studies Department of 
the Russell Sage Foundation was organized to look after 
the conditions of employment of women in munitions fac- 
tories, both government arsenals and civilian establishments 
working on war contracts. Its headquarters and field staff 
included college professors of economics and sociology, ex- 
ecutive secretaries of state minimum wage boards, officials 
of state departments of labor and industry, secretaries of 
branches of the Consumers' League and the Women's Trade 
Union League, personnel and service managers, department 
store educational directors, industrial secretaries of the 
Young Women's Christian Association, factory inspectors, 



INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR SERVICES 215 

industrial investigators, vocational guidance v^orkers, super- 
visors of continuation classes. Of thirty-six women in these 
positions, only two were without direct or indirect indus- 
trial experience. At least twelve had likewise been social 
workers, and seven or eight teachers. This picked group 
epitomizes the recent history of professional women in re- 
lation to industry and labor : the first contact through social 
work and teaching; the closer although still external fa- 
miliarity through industrial investigation under public or 
private auspices and through industrial education and voca- 
tional guidance ; and, finally, actual employment in industry, 
first as ^'welfare" workers and "employment managers," 
then in operative and supervisory positions concerned with 
production rather than merely "service." The three-fold 
contact of these "ordnance women" with industrial em- 
ployers, industrial workers, and the federal government 
was an education for all concerned. Moreover, the special 
services established by the Department of Labor and form- 
ing the National War Labor Administration drew heavily 
upon women industrial experts and upon younger women 
with special training and experience. For the first time, 
trade-union women were placed in executive or advisory 
positions. The Women in Industry Service, long advocated 
by organizations familiar with the problems of working 
women, came into existence as a war-emergency measure, 
with Miss Mary Van Kleeck as director and Miss Mary 
Anderson, a leading trade-union organizer, as assistant 
director. 

Professional women were attached to other services of 
the War Labor Administration : the War Labor Board, the 
War Labor Policies Board, the Information and Education 
Service, the Working Conditions Service, the U. S. Employ- 
ment Service, the U. S. Housing Corporation. Others did 
investigative and statistical work for the War Industries 
Board, the Shipping Board, the War Trade Board, the Cen- 
tral Bureau of Planning and Statistics, the Food Adminis- 
tration. Women directed the committees on women in in- 
dustry established throughout the country by the Women's 
Committee of the Council of National Defence. 

Since the close of the war many of the older women in 



2i6 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

industrial and labor war services have returned to their 
posts v^ith enlarged outlooks and a better understanding 
of both the advantages and limitations of government ad- 
ministration. The younger v^^omen have gone into all sorts 
of agencies for industrial investigation or into industry it- 
self. Others are pursuing graduate study in the economic 
and industrial field, having learned the need of as large a 
grasp as possible of principles and problems and the im- 
portance of scientific techniques in industrial research. Cer- 
tain institutions offer special opportunities for graduate 
study of this character, among them the universities of 
California and Wisconsin, Bryn Mawr College, the schools 
of social w^ork, notably the New York School, the Chicago 
School of Civics and Philanthropy, now the Philanthropic 
Service Division of the School of Commerce and Adminis- 
tration of the University of Chicago, ?,nd the New School 
for Social Research in New York. This last institution is 
offering for the year 1920-1921 several fellowships of 
$2,000 for advanced research in industrial and public prob- 
lems. Other smaller fellowships are available. The three 
research fellowships of the Women's Educational and In- 
dustrial Union of Boston are open to any properly qualified 
woman college graduate. The fellowships of the Inter- 
collegiate Community Service Association, offered by sev- 
eral of the member colleges, may be used for study of the 
social bearings of industry. For all graduate work in this 
field pre-professional courses in economics and labor prob- 
lems, statistics, psychology, and some form of biology are 
essential. Courses in history, government, anthropology, 
and modern languages are of first importance. Contacts 
are being developed between educational institutions and 
industrial concerns for the providing of actual shop ex- 
perience for students as part of their professional training. 
The Carola Woerishoffer Graduate Department of Social 
Economy and Social Research of Bryn Mawr College re- 
ports such arrangements for its students with fourteen firms 
in the metal industries, seven in the textile industries, two 
in paper industries, and two in printing industries, as well 
as with seven public or private research agencies. The plans 
of the Technology Clubs Associated, the American Council 



INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR SERVICES 217 

on Education, and a large number of leading industries for 
the professional training of executives have been described. 
While these plans have reference chiefly to men, profes- 
sional women also are certain to profit from them even- 
tually. 

Outside private agencies for the study and betterment of 
industrial and labor conditions include (i) organizations 
primarily religious or philanthropic in character, such as 
the Young Women's Christian Association with its depart- 
ment of industrial secretaries for work among working 
women and girls ; the National League of Women Workers 
and other more or less self-governing clubs, and to some 
extent the Girl Scouts, a body which is beginning to work 
with older girls; (2) organizations estabhshed primarily 
for publicity and propaganda in the interests of both indi- 
vidual and legislative action, such as the Consumers' League 
and the National Child Labor Committee; (3) organiza- 
tions established primarily to draw up programs and to 
work for improved legislation and proper enforcement of 
labor laws, such as the American Association for Labor 
Legislation and to some extent the National Society for the 
Promotion of Vocational Education; (4) organizations es- 
tablished primarily for research, such as the Department of 
Industrial Studies of the Sage Foundation, the Bureau of 
Industrial Research, the National Industrial Conference 
Board, the Research Department of the Women's Educa- 
tional and Industrial Union, the Industrial Survey and In- 
formation Service in Washington. The particular groups 
backing research organizations need to be known. In some 
cases, they are groups of manufacturers ; in a growing num- 
ber of cases, they are labor unions ; in other cases, they are 
public-spirited citizens. Philanthropic and publicity organi- 
zations are supplementing their personal activities with in- 
vestigations and legislative programs. The Young Women's 
Christian Association recently issued a pamphlet on the 
Legal Recognition of Industrial Women, and maintains a 
research department. The Consumers' League has for 
years made careful industrial studies, and has furthered en- 
lightened labor legislation for women. Its national and 
branch secretaries have been women of wide reputation; 



2i8 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

and young women serving under them receive a valuable 
training. Opportunities are of course few in number. 

State departments or bureaus of labor and industries are 
growing in number and importance. Forty-five states have 
some sort of public labor board, many of them active and 
efficient, though others are not free from political dry-rot. 
There are frequently other public boards and commissions, 
temporary or permanent, dealing with industrial matters. 
Many states now have workmen's compensatibn boards. 
Most of these bodies employ well-trained young women as 
inspectors, investigators, research and statistical workers 
and a smaller number of experienced women as executive 
officers. A college woman of experience in industrial in- 
vestigation has been made a member of the New York 
State Industrial Commission at a salary of $8,000; another, 
a former secretary of the New York City Consumers* 
League, is chief of the women in industry bureau of the 
same commission. The state industrial welfare commis- 
sions of California, Washington, and Kansas have wom^sn 
executive secretaries. Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Penn- 
sylvania, and Wisconsin have women in charge of state 
bureaus of women and children in industry. Twelve states, 
ranging from Massachusetts to California, and the District 
of Columbia, have minimum wage boards or commissions 
with women in their membership and women executives. 

Before the war the various bureaus of the Federal De- 
partment of Labor, especially the Children's Bureau and 
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employed a number of com- 
petent women as field agents, special investigators, and so 
on. Since its establishment, the Children's Bureau has 
been headed by a college woman. Miss Julia C. Lathrop, and 
has employed many college women in its child labor, infant 
mortality, child health, and child welfare work. The nine- 
teen volume Report on the Condition of Women and Child 
Wage Earners issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 
191 1 was to a considerable extent the work of women in- 
vestigators. Its recent studies of the cost of living and of 
industrial conditions have been made by a staff including 
women. The Department of Labor library is in charge 
of a woman. The war-emergency Women in Industry Scry- 



INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR SERVICES 219 

ice has become a permanent Women's Bureau, with Miss 
Anderson as director. It employs women industrial ex- 
perts, but with its present small appropriations positions 
under it are few. 

The importance of the labor union movement has been 
greatly enhanced by the war and its results ; and it is secur- 
ing as never before the sympathetic interest and in many 
cases the adherence of professional workers. Organized 
labor, on its side, is finding out the value of expert and dis- 
interested professional service. For professional women the 
two aspects of most direct significance are the extension 
of unions among unorganized women workers^ and the 
development of educational projects and agencies by and 
with the cooperation of organized labor. In the United 
States, the National Women's Trade Union League of 
America, established in 1904 by a group of professional 
women under the leadership of Mrs. Raymond Robins and 
her sister, has drawn together scattered local unions of 
women, grown steadily, and come increasingly under the di- 
rection of labor women themselves, though admitting other 
women to membership. It has local branches, and repre- 
sents about 6cx),C)00 organized women. Professional women 
have been connected with it as executive secretaries, editors, 
and educational directors. One of the most constructive and 
prophetic undertakings of the National Women's Trade 
Union League is the School for Active Workers in the 
Labor Movement, opened in 1916 at the headquarters of the 
League in Chicago. This school provides a year's training 
for women trade unionists recommended by local unions 
and approved by the executive board ; its object is chiefly 
to develop women organizers. The course has been given 
partly in cooperation with the University of Chicago and 
Northwestern University, and has comprised industrial his- 
tory, women in the labor movement, judicial decisions re- 
garding labor, trade agreements, legislation affecting women 
and children, parliamentary and office practice, labor or- 

^ See Emilie J. Hutchinson. Women's Wages, especially Chapter 
7 (1919). The New Position of Women in American Industry; 
Industrial Opportunities and Training for Women and Girls. Wom- 
en's Bureau Bulletins 12, 13 (1920), 



220 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

ganization, and field work. Other educational undertakings 
among women workers are the education committee of the 
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and the edu- 
cational department of the Ladies' Waist Makers' Local 
Number 25 in New York City, which has a university 
woman as director. 

These educational experiments among women trade 
unionists are part of the larger educational movement among 
trade unionists in general, which has expressed itself in 
England for a number of years in the Workers' Educational 
Association^ and recently in this country through the estab- 
lishment of trade union colleges, of which those in Boston 
and Washington are pioneers. These colleges are governed 
by a board representing unions, teachers, and students. 
Many college instructors and other professional workers are 
on the teaching staffs. While the tendency in this country 
is to establish separate institutions rather than tutorial 
classes in connection with the universities and colleges, as 
in Great Britain, there is a chance to work out between the 
trade union colleges and academic institutions some system 
of instruction and exchange scholarships, as this book has 
already advocated.^ The new educational contacts between 
higher education and industry cannot ignore the industrial 
worker and remain democratic. At recent annual meetings, 
the American Federation of Labor has passed strong resolu- 
tions on the subject of education, including a resolution that 
all state and local central labor bodies that have not done so 
be urged to establish a committee on education as one of 
their standing committees and to make vigorous efforts to 
secure adequate representation of organized labor on all 
boards of education. The New York branch of the Amal- 
gamated Clothing Workers is planning a six hundred thou- 
sand dollar building, which will be devoted to business, 
educational, and recreational activities. 

Another movement which is spreading among organized 

'See Workers' Educational Association Year Book (1918). Adult 
Working-Class Education in Great Britain and the United States. 
Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 271. Albert Mansbridge. 
An Adventure in Working-Class Education (1920). 

^Tn 1920-1921 Amherst College is offering courses in connection 
with the Central Labor Unions of Holyoke and Springfield, Mass. 



INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR SERVICES 221 

workers and with which professional women are coming to 
identify themselves is the cooperative movement. The Co- 
operative League of America acts as a center of informa- 
tion and propaganda. Its development will be a step in 
the direction of social and economic understanding, since 
it emphasizes the fact, too often forgotten by both capital 
and labor, that the industrial worker is a consumer as well 
as a producer. 

Fifteen women connected with industrial agencies other 
than factories filled our schedules. Their salaries ranged 
in 1918 and 1919 from $1,000 to $3,500 with a median salary 
of $1,800. The minimum salary for women in private agen- 
cies is $1,000; for women in public agencies, $1,500; the 
maximum and the median are the same in both cases as 
for the whole group. In the private group are a secretary 
on relations with employers of the industrial department of 
the Young Women's Christian Association ; executive secre- 
taries of city and state Consumers' Leagues and of the Na- 
tional Society for the Promotion of Vocational Education; 
a staff worker in the American Association for Labor Legis- 
lation ; a secretary of a branch of the Women's Trade Union 
League ; a research worker for the National Industrial Con- 
ference Board; the director and assistant director of the 
research department of the Women's Educational and In- 
dustrial Union. All are college women; two have the 
master's degree; two, that of doctor of philosophy; several 
others have done graduate work. 

Their advice is as follows: ''Secure technical training. 
Don't *fall into' work." 

''Secure as much theoretical training and industrial ex- 
perience as possible." 

"Get a thorough knowledge of economics, sociology, and 
statistics, and also familiarity with the various office devices 
used in statistical work — slide rule, adding machine, type- 
writer, ruling pen, etc." 

In the public group are the executive secretary of a 
western state industrial welfare commission, a state factory 
inspector, the executive secretary of a minimum wage board, 
a special agent in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an assist- 
ant to the director of a war-emergency labor service, a 



222 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

special agent in charge of trade and industrial education for 
women and girls of the Federal Board for Vocational 
Education, the director of a vocational bureau in a city 
public school system. All but one of these women is a 
college graduate ; one has the doctor's degree ; one the mas- 
ter's degree ; several have done graduate work. They have 
been college professors, directed public school extension 
work, served as secretaries and investigators of consumers' 
leagues ; and advise as follows : "Get a knowledge of labor 
from the inside." 

"Cultivate tact and accuracy, and utilize every oppor- 
tunity of learning about industrial problems." 

"Alternate training with actual employment or industrial 
experience in order that education and experience may 
supplement each other." 

"Take very thorough university and school of civics 
training, stressing economics, sociology, and applied psy- 
chology." 



CHAPTER XIII 

COMMERCIAL SERVICES, OFFICE AND MERCANTILE. WHAT IS 
A PROFESSIONAL SECRETARY? 

This chapter deals with general office and mercantile 
occupations ; the next chapter with the specialized occupa- 
tions of banking, insurance, public utilities, and real estate;- 
Chapter XV with the closely related field of advertising and 
publicity. The three groups of occupations have many 
common procedures, and all three form part of the vast 
commercial system by means of which modern society car- 
ries on the distribution, exchange, and accumulation of 
property in the form of money, goods, land, buildings, 
and tools. Commercial activities are commonly referred 
to as "business," although the term properly covers manu- 
facturing activities as well. It has recently been said that 
"the beginning and the end of every business enterprise 
is a marketing problem." ^ In a real sense, offices and 
mercantile establishments — wholesale, retail, importing and 
exporting, or "jobbing" — may be compared to manufactur- 
ing establishments. They, too, have specialized workers, 
supervisors, and managers, they, too, have specialized ma- 
chines — ^typewriters, dictophones, addressographs, comptom- 
eters ; they, too, turn out a daily product — correspondence, 
records, reports, sales. They are borrowing factory meth- 
ods of routing work and charting progress. Office manage- 
ment and sales management are coming to be as professional 
as industrial management.^ 

There has never been so much talk of "professional op- 
portunities" in the commercial world,^ nor so lively an in- 
clination among educated women to "go into business." 

^C. S. Duncan. Commercial Research (1919), P. v. 
'See Chapter I for a discussion of the professional status of 
commercial occupations. 

223 



224 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

i^ut hitherto they have had Hmited notions of what is com- 
prised under the term, and have thought of it almost alto- 
gether as a matter of office practice. They have considered^ 
themselves fully equipped with a "business course" of from 
three to six months at a commercial school or a longer 
"secretarial course" at a vocational college. Many young 
women retain this naive and undiscriminating attitude. 
Others, through positions with government war-emergency 
services and large commercial concerns operating under war 
conditions, have gained a new understanding of the range of 
commercial organization and the varieties of expert service 
which it demands. Commercial employers, like industrial 
employers, have "discovered" college women and are begin- 
ning to recruit "promising material," "the upper ten per 
cent," from the women's colleges as they have been doing 
for the past ten years from the men's colleges. They are 
likewise studying their own commercial problems as never 
before, and establishing research bureaus,^ personnel depart- 
ments, and training departments for workers in service. 
Under these circumstances, it is high time for college women 
to inquire seriously into positions of professional character 
in the commercial world ; how far they have, or are likely 
to have, access to them ; and what qualifications are neces- 
sary for success. So far, the really outstanding women in 
business have for the most part come up from the ranks of 
clerical or sales workers through sheer ability and per- 
sistence. 

The two main types of commercial occupation are office 
work, the function of which is the planning, recording, 
and coordinating of buying and selling operations ; and 
trade or mercantile work, the function of which is the 
actual buying and selling. Office work is of two kinds — 
quantitative in the form of accounts and statistics, and 
non-quantitative in the form of correspondence, reports, 
and so on. Both require executives and experts on the one 
hand and routine workers, clerks and stenographers, on the 
other. Both are calling for technical and research experts 
and for personnel or service workers in increasing numbers. 
Commercial and industrial organizations have many points 

* See C. S. Duncan. Commercial Research, 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 225 

in common. Clerks, typists, stenographers, bookkeepers^ 
cashiers, commercial machine and telephone and telegraph 
operators, retail salespeople, correspond in the commercial 
world to the skilled and semi-skilled operatives of the 
industrial world. Office managers, secretaries, traffic man- 
agers, floor managers, credit managers^ buyers, sales-agents, 
correspond to the lower or departmental group of factory 
executives. Superintendents, general managers, merchan- 
dise managers, sales-managers, advertising managers, em- 
ployment or personnel managers, correspond to the upper or 
staff group of factory executives. 

Since commerce is carried on so largely through letters, 
records, documents, symbols, figures, its routine processes 
tend to become quite as stereotyped, monotonous, and hu- 
manly deadening and exhausting as the most subdivided 
and mechanical industrial operations. These last at least 
require dealing with concrete things for concrete uses, and 
they are likely to involve larger muscular reactions than 
those called for in manipulating commercial machines, in 
figuring, or filing. In many respects the lower ranks of 
clerical workers are looked upon as mere tools to a degree 
unequaled elsewhere. There is an extraordinary unreality 
and detachment from life attendant upon continuous deal- 
ing with words and figures in a mechanical fashion, — what in 
the army was despairingly called "paper work." More- 
over, clerical workers lack the trade organizations, trade 
standards, and trade pride that are a source of support and 
self-respect to skilled industrial workers. Under the pinch 
of present costs, commercial workers are trying to organize; 
but they suffer from having so many among them who look 
upon their work as a transient and stop-gap occupation, 
and who feel socially superior to industrial workers. The 
Federal Employees' Union, has, however, perceptibly altered 
the attitude of government clerks. In both Great Britain 
and this country representation of civil-service workers in 
the management of their working conditions is being ad- 
vocated. One of the tasks ahead of professional workers 
in the commercial field is to devise with clerical workers 
provisions for reducing or counteracting the dehumanizing 
nature of their work. Industrial fatigue has been studied 



Z26 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

far more carefully than commercial fatigue. In the solu- 
tion of this problem professional women may well take an 
important part; and they need to inform themselves thor- 
oughly regarding every group of commercial workers*.^ 
They have very generally clung to secretarial, managerial, 
and expert positions. 

In 1910, 65.8 per cent of all clerical workers were men; 
34.2 per cent were women. Of stenographers and typists, 
82.1 per cent were women and 17.9 per cent were men; 
of clerks, 83.3 per cent were men and 16.7 per cent were 
women ; of bookkeepers, cashiers, and accountants, 60.3 
per cent were men and 39.7 per cent were women. Although 
clerical workers are not themselves professional, their dis- 
tribution is pertinent to our discussion as showing the 
different doorways through which men and women com- 
mercial workers advance to positions of professional respon- 
sibility. Miss Stevens's study of boys and girls in commer- 
cial work made in 1916 as part of the Cleveland Education 
Survey bears out the census figures, and discusses their 
significance. It finds among commercial executives 96 per 
cent men and 6 per cent women, and draws the conclusion 
that the vast majority of men reach administrative positions 
through other routes than the route of stenography; that 
clerkships offer a better chance of learning the business, and 
are far more open avenues of promotion. "Shorthand 
has indeed been the key to that future which business 
opened to girls; but shorthand for boys has proved a key 
which as time goes on unlocks fewer and fewer of the 
doors they want to go through." 

It cannot of course be argued that men have reached 
these higher positions solely because they have refused to 
study stenography. The division of clerical functions be- 
tween men and women is due to a variety of causes. Women 
began to enter commercial life at about the time when the 

^ See Commercial Occupations. Opportunity Monograph No. 23. 
Federal Board for Vocational Education (1919). Office Employees. 
Descriptions of Occupations. Bureau of Labor Statistics (1919). 
May Allinson. The Public Schools and Women in OMce Service 
(1914). Bertha M. Stevens. Boys and Girls in Commercial Work 
in Cleveland (1916) ; Private Commercial Schools in New York 
City (1918). 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 227 

typewriter was put upon the market and systems of short- 
hand were perfected, and naturally engaged in a new type of 
work not yet preempted by men. It required, moreover, a 
detailed skill of the sort in which women, rightly or wrongly, 
have been considered particularly apt. Through stenography 
and typing women have gained a foothold in commercial oc- 
cupations that they could have secured in no other way. 
Through these routine skills, some able women have ob- 
tained an insight into commercial organization and opera- 
tion that has won for them advancement to more important 
posts. But the days are fast passing when the office boy, 
the junior clerk, or the stenographer with little education 
can forge ahead and become a manager or an official of 
the company. For both men and women advancement in 
business is coming to depend upon thorough preparation 
plus successful experience. While it cannot be said that 
all doors in business are as yet wide open to women, they 
are at least ajar, and business men are even peering curi- 
ously through them to see how many women are really 
prepared to enter and to shoulder their full share of re- 
sponsibility. It is therefore incumbent upon educated women 
looking forward to "business careers" to ask themselves 
how far they should continue to use the road of stenog- 
raphy, to what positions of a professional type it leads, 
and what other roads are now open to them or ready 
to be broken. 

There is no doubt that stenography has been the road 
to the position of private secretary, the chief goal of 
the educated woman in the recent past. In fact, so great has 
been the prestige of the title "secretary" that it has been 
eagerly appropriated by many a stenographer; and the im- 
plications of the term and the boundaries of the position 
have been exceedingly ill-defined. Positions and training 
courses have been called "secretarial" that have had slender 
claims to professional standing. But of late there have been 
efforts to distinguish clearly between the stenographer and 
the secretary anc to establish the professional character of 
the secretarial worker. 

The monograph on Commercial Occupations of the Fed- 
eral Board for Vocational Education says: "Executives in 



228 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

responsible positions are finding it necessary more and 
more to rely upon efficient secretarial help. Such an execu- 
tive must generally have some assistant who is thoroughly 
familiar with every detail of his activities, and is able to 
assume responsibility for innumerable details connected with 
the day's work. . . . There is a wide gap between secretarial 
and stenographic duties. Skill in shorthand and typewrit- 
ing is now recognized as desirable for the secretary, but 
the possession of this skill does not insure secretarial effi- 
ciency. ... It is quite likely that a period of apprentice- 
ship as a stenographer will continue to be a very desirable 
part of one's training for the higher duties of a secretarial 
position. . . . The trained secretary relieves the executive 
of all detail by keeping him informed as to the important 
happenings in the business world that may be of particular 
interest, ... by gathering data for the preparation of 
papers and speeches, by standing between him and the pub- 
lic .. . and in every way by keeping the executive's time 
free for the more important managerial responsibilities de- 
volving upon him."^ 

This and other descriptions which might be quoted em- 
phasize the point that a secretary's principal function is 
that of representing the executive, that he is a person with 
delegated but responsible executive duties. They are writ- 
ten with men secretaries in mind, and call attention to the 
important executive positions to which secretaryships ma}^ 
lead. This use of secretarial positions is far less frequent 
for women than for men. In fact, women have considered 
such positions as goals ; men have considered them as step- 
ping-stones. A much higher type of woman than of man 
has been willing to be permanently a secretary, and has 
consequently been in steady demand. This difference in 
the secretarial appeal to men and to women is reflected in 
the fact that there are secretarial courses of university and 
college grade for women and no similar courses for men. 

The recognition of secretarial work as a distinct and 
special profession for women marks a stage in their busi- 
ness evolution beyond which they are already beginning 
to pass. The fact that women are now holding important 
* Vocational Rehabilitation Series, Number 23 (1919). 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 229 

posts under the title of "assistants to executives" means 
that the business world is making a last stand before ad- 
mitting them to full executive responsibility. But it also 
means that women must ask themselves whether secretarial 
training as now given is the best approach to management. 
An efficient secretary to an executive undoubtedly shoulders 
responsibility of a sort, and has daily opportunities to ex- 
ercise quick-wittedness, resourcefulness, good humor, and 
tact. She must anticipate situations, keep her head in 
emergencies, and act always as a buffer between her su- 
perior and the pressure of people and details. She needs 
a trained mind, an acquaintance with sources of informa- 
tion, and a knowledge of the operations of the business 
with which she is connected. But when all is said, she 
remains an intermediary without final responsibility and 
with limited independence. She is at best only a "detail 
executive" and not an "idea executive." Her opportunities 
even for intellectual development depend largely upon the 
personality of her employer ; and she lacks the stimulus of 
sharing in the working out of group plans of action. Her 
position is somewhat like that of the bedside nurse. 

In the past, young college women have often chosen sec- 
retarial work because of the brevity and cheapness of the 
training, its assurance of steady if moderate financial re- 
turns, its combination of a new range of experiences and 
more or less sheltered conditions. Few of them have gone 
into it in a fully professional spirit, and many have failed 
to realize that to raise it to a professional level they 
must command a special subject matter as well as certain 
purely instrumental skills. A young woman who is "secre- 
tary" now to a publisher, now to a department-store super- 
intendent, now to a wholesale woolen merchant, now to the 
executive of a social agency, is not a professional worker 
in any real sense. To-day with larger commercial prospects 
before women and with various "training in service" sys- 
tems in operation in progressive commercial establishments, 
secretarial work ceases to be an exclusive or preferred line 
of advancement for either men or women. In fact, it has 
certain psychological disadvantages. A recent book on the 
training of a salesman calls attention to this. "The secre- 



230 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

tarial type of man and the executive type of man are 
almost the exact opposites, but it is sometimes very difficult 
to detect the secretarial type and avoid his appointment to 
executive posts. Frequently he makes a better first impres- 
sion than the executive type. . . . Perhaps plausibility is one 
of the symptoms of the secretarial type of man. I rather 
think it is. . . .If, when you ask him for a definite result, 
a man merely describes the methods he proposes to employ, 
you can be pretty certain that he is the secretarial type of 
man who in the event of failure will say, 'Well, I did all I 
could. It isn't up to me. My skirts are clear.' On the other 
hand, the true executive is seldom very ready with alibis 
or excuses. When his ship sinks, he usually goes down with 
it — his colors nailed to the mast." ^ 

On the other hand, secretarial work, while no longer 
the sole nor the highest opportunity for women in business, 
affords a certain amount of professional scope and is gen- 
erally accessible to educated women. Women who are de- 
tail-minded and quicker to anticipate and carry out the ideas 
of others than they are to think for themselves are better 
fitted to be secretaries than they are to be managers or 
research workers. It is to be hoped that dependable specifi- 
cations and tests for the three types may be worked out 
before long. People show a distressing tendency to ascribe 
to themselves "executive ability." Mr. Maxwell observes in 
his amusing chapter, "Wanted — A Man with Executive 
Ability" : "In hiring men I have frequently asked the ques- 
tion *Do you feel that you have native executive ability?' 
I do not recall that I ever received a negative answer." 

Not all secretaries by any means are attached to com- 
mercial organizations. There are secretaries to executives 
of educational, social, and governmental organizations and 
departments ; secretaries to professional practitioners — min- 
isters, doctors, lawyers, writers, and so on ; so-called "social" 
secretaries to persons of wealth and leisure. Executive or 
general secretaries of boards and associations perform ad- 
ministrative and managerial duties rather than those of a 
secretary proper. But no secretary is entitled to consider 

^William Maxwell. The Training of a Salesman (1919), pp. 
196-198. 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 231 

herself a professional person who does not possess in addi- 
tion of her clerical skills a background knowledge and a 
thorough practical familiarity with the special field in which 
she is working. An intensive study of opportunities for 
women in secretarial service was issued in 1914, based on 
records of 1,500 women who had taken the secretarial course 
at Simmons College or were registered in the Appointment 
Bureau of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union 
of Boston.^ It shows the prevalent loose use of the term 
"secretary," the distribution in the several fields, the edu- 
cation and the remuneration received. A similar study made 
to-day would undoubtedly reveal a clearer conception of 
secretarial duties, a larger number of positions of approxi- 
mately professional character, and a substantially higher 
level of salaries.^ 

Although stenography is as yet a necessary part of the 
equipment of any woman entering the secretarial field, its 
importance is likely to be overestimated even there. The 
more a woman's duties are really those of a professional 
secretary, the less likely she is to be called upon to take 
dictation herself. In a large office, she has stenographers 
under her or at the call of herself or her employer. In 
this case, she merely directs them, and supervises the results. 
In a small office, or with a private employer, she may some- 
times have to do stenographic work; but if she is really a 
secretary, she is herself responsible for a large part of the 
correspondence, submitting the completed letters for ap- 
proval and signature, or sometimes sending them under her 
own name. There are those who think that the dictaphone, 
the stenotype, and other appliances are making stenography 
itself of diminishing importance. There is no doubt, how- 
ever, that every secretary — in fact, every professional 
woman — should use the typewriter with facility. It is like- 
wise of advantage to know enough of office practices and the 
operation of the various office machines to supervise work 

^ Vocations for the Trained Woman. Part 2. Opportunities in 
Secretarial Service (1914). 

' The Bulletin of the National Committee of Bureaus of Occupa- 
tions for October, 1920, is devoted to secretarial work, and contains 
valuable reports from the various bureaus and "case histories" of 
women secretaries. 



2Z2 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

intelligently and to estimate the amount of time necessary 
to perform it. 

Closely allied to the secretary and usually with similar 
training is the correspondent, who dictates herself or super- 
vises all letters going out from an office. In some establish- 
ments, no piece of first-class mail goes out without being 
reviewed by one person. Export and import houses, banks 
with foreign branches or connections, all commercial organ- 
izations concerned with foreign trade, employ workers with 
a command of languages as foreign correspondents. The 
war has enormously stimulated American interest in foreign 
trade, and widened the demand for well equipped workers. 
The National City Bank has trained carefully selected 
groups of young college men as managers of branches in 
foreign countries and groups of young college women as 
correspondents. A foreign correspondent must have a thor- 
ough knowledge of the particular kind of trade and the 
particular country with which she is dealing; and ordinary 
college courses in modern languages, even if topped by a 
course in ''commercial usage," and training in stenography, 
will not equip her to advance far on the road from routine 
to responsible commercial work. She needs a far more 
fundamental preparation involving as rich a background 
knowledge as possible of the language, customs, and social 
psychology of the foreign country, special professional 
courses in the principles and techniques of foreign trade, 
and actual apprenticeship with an organization engaged in 
this type of business. For the present, this apprenticeship 
is likely to be most easily secured through routine experi- 
ence as stenographer. But with the many new courses in 
foreign trade now being offered by universities, there will 
undoubtedly be cooperative training arrangements with busi- 
ness organizations by means of which there will be more 
direct and less wasteful modes of approach to positions of 
the professional correspondent type. Meanwhile, the details 
of business usage in a foreign language can be easily and 
quickly secured by any one with a good general knowledge 
of the tongue. College "commercial courses" in a foreign 
language are therefore largely a waste of time. They take 
time from the larger preparation which only the college can 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 233 

provide, and usually prove not wholly applicable to the con- 
crete commercial situations encountered later. 

There is a widespread belief among commercial employers, 
partly a superstition, partly founded on cases in their ex- 
perience, that college women, like clerical women, are a 
shifting labor supply, looking upon their work as a "stop- 
gap" occupation and leaving it on account of marriage or 
from mere whim. While they complain that college women 
are not willing to ''begin at the bottom" as college men are 
learning to do, they refrain from holding out to them as they 
do to college men, the assurance that by so doing they may 
''come out at the top." It is high time for some one of the 
organizations for commercial research to study the "turn- 
over" of comparable groups of college men and college 
women and to discover to what extent generalizations based 
on clerical women are justified in the case of professional 
women. With the same prospects of advancement, women 
are likely to approximate men's stability in employment. 
At present the entire situation is in a transitional state, com- 
plicated by all sorts of "folkways" and leisure notions re- 
garding women. 

Meanwhile, there is ground for at least a strong suspicion 
that the massing of women in stenography stands in the 
way of their advancement to positions of responsibility. 
A stenographer with a college degree is no more a pro- 
fessional worker than a stenographer without a college 
degree ; and she may sometimes be kept from advancement 
because of the very fact that she is so useful to her em- 
ployer where she is. For an educated woman to become 
an expert stenographer is to run a real risk of exploitation. 
In his sprightly chapter on the Fifty-Dollar a Week Girl, 
Mr. Maxw^ell says : "If I were a girl, I should not study 
stenography, but if I were a stenographer, I should study 
advertising." A successful woman in an investment house 
gives this advice: "Let me say in capital letters don't 
LEARN STENOGRAPHY ^f you have any ambition to go 
beyond it. Stenographers, because of the noise of their 
machines, are generally kept together in a sort of harem 
remote from the pulse of business. Their work is too 
mechanical to teach them much. They are too busy to 



234 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

study and too well paid to break away into other depart- 
ments, most of which pay less well for the first few years." ^ 
Professionally, stenography appears to be governed by a 
law of diminishing returns, and in most cases to be a 
''blind-alley" occupation for the well-trained and ambitious 
woman. If she wishes to acquire it as a useful commercial 
skill, she should be under no illusions as to its adequacy in 
itself as a means of professional advancement. 

Well organized commercial firms are rapidly establish- 
ing definite courses of instruction for "learners in service," 
and are on the lookout for promising young men and women 
with good educational background and preferably some 
professional preparation in commerce, business administra- 
tion, and finance. Educated women planning a business 
career should expect to serve a period of apprenticeship, and 
should make every effort to secure their initial positions 
with firms which offer these courses or at least make a 
practice of trying out beginners by "rotating" them through 
their several departments. It is no less important in busi- 
ness than in social work or industry to become connected 
at first with an organization which has a policy of educa- 
tional supervision and systematic promotion. Just as young 
college women are nowadays operating machines in factories 
as a necessary part of their training for managerial or expert 
positions and selling behind counters in department stores 
as a necessary part of their training for positions as "educa- 
tional directors," so they must be prepared to serve for a 
definite period as clerks or bookkeepers or salesmen "in the 
shop" or "on the road," as a necessary part of their train- 
ing for responsible commercial positions of various sorts. 
In such a recognized apprenticeship, a command of any of 
the routine office skills — not only stenography and typing but 
also filing, stencil-cutting, and above all operating of the 
comptometer or other computing machines — gains a new 
kind of importance as giving the learner an understanding 
of the details of office work and also of the minds of fellow 
workers. 

Since the beginning of the war there has been a remark- 

^ Elizabeth E. Cook. Opportunities for Women in Finance. Jour- 
nal Association Collegiate Alumnce. Vol. XI. 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 235 

able increase in the use of computing machines in financial 
and statistical work. The old-time bookkeeper has prac- 
tically disappeared in large organizations, and has been 
superseded by the accountant-bookkeeper, a professionally 
trained worker in charge of a number of machine operators. 
Thus commerce like industry is becoming more and more a 
matter of specialized machine operation on the one hand 
and professional direction on the other. With the prospect 
of both groups of workers being represented in manage- 
ment, it becomes imperative for each to understand the 
other and especially for those who manage to have had 
some genuine working experience among those who operate. 
Hitherto the woman office manager has been recruited 
principally from the rank and file of clerical workers on 
the score of personality and ability to direct and supervise 
others. She has had the advantage of knowing at first- 
hand the details of office practice and the ways of the 
people under her. But like the old type of industrial fore- 
man, she has had inevitably a narrow outlook, and like him 
has sometimes tended to become a hard and petty "boss." 
With the development of the science of business organiza- 
tion and administration, the standardizing of office pro- 
cedures, and the employment of large numbers of routine 
clerical workers, the position of office manager is attract- 
ing vigorous-minded and resourceful young women to 
whom secretarial work seems a rather pallid occupation. 
To what extent professional office managers will continue 
to approach the position through one of the office skills re- 
mains to be seen. They will certainly need some kind of 
office apprenticeship as well as the larger training of a 
school of business administration. In commerce as in in- 
dustry there is need of an exchange of views and training 
between workers with only an educational equipment and 
workers with only a practical equipment. The schools of 
commerce and business of university grade are likely to 
make cooperative training arrangements with commercial 
organizations as the schools of engineering and economics 
are making them with the industries. Meanwhikj the new 
Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs 
could perform no more useful service than to form a small 



236 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

committee of women with large practical knowledge of busi- 
ness management and women with professional training in 
commerce and finance to work out a tentative program of 
class work and field work for prospective office managers 
and other business executives and also to encourage suc- 
cessful business women without adequate educational back- 
ground to enroll in special courses dealing with problems 
of business administration. There is a growing demand for 
expert office organizers. 



Expert accountancy is a commercial occupation of pro- 
fessional standing and of increasing importance. It offers 
a highly specialized type of work to women who are inter- 
ested in modern commercial movements and methods, but 
who are not strongly drawn or temperamentally suited to 
the difficult adjustments of management. Probably for the 
present women will have to meet fewer obstacles on account 
of their sex in these expert services of a non-executive char- 
acter. A recent bulletin of vocational information says : 
"Accounting is a broader term than bookkeeping. The ac- 
countant is called upon to install the system of records while 
the bookkeeper enters the figures which pertain to various 
transactions as they occur. The accountant is the systema- 
tizer and organizer and finally the auditor who establishes 
the accuracy of the work or detects the errors in it. The 
science of accounting as distinguished from bookkeeping 
is comparatively new ... In large modern manufacturing 
or mercantile establishments, with many departments in- 
tricately related with each other and with the world out- 
side, the points where economies may be effected or losses 
develop become very numerous and often difficult to detect. 
It is this magnitude and complexity of modern business 
which calls for the aid of the trained accountant." ^ 

The highest type of accountant is the certified public ac- 
countant who passes difficult state examinations, and re- 
ceives the degree of C. P. A. Since 1896, forty-two states 
have established these examinations by law. There are 

* Vocational Information. Leland Stanford Junior University, 
June, 1919. 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 237 

local and national societies of certified public accountants. 
Many of these public accountants practice independently 
or as consultants in the same way as doctors, lawyers, and 
architects. Others are employed by large corporations. 
Under them are junior and senior accountants, who have 
had a certain amount of training and experience, but who 
have not yet been certified. Many students of accountancy 
take vacation positions in accounting offices as the practical 
part of their preparation, or continue their professional 
study while regularly employed. The two main types of 
accountant are the general expert accountant, who fre- 
quently serves as auditor or comptroller, and the cost ac- 
countant, who is employed by manufacturing or public- 
utility corporations to analyze the costs of production or 
service. These methods are also being applied to the oper- 
ating, purchasing, and sales departments of commercial or- 
ganizations. Modern systems of ''functional accounting" 
and budget making have been worked out by such agencies 
as bureaus of municipal or governmental research, and are 
being adopted by municipal, state, and federal departments 
of government. 

The federal government has need of many more account- 
ants than it used before the war. Foreign loans, bond is- 
sues, and new taxes call for a small army of workers. 
Recent civil service examinations have been held for ac- 
counting and statistical clerks at salaries ranging from $1,200 
to $1,620; for accountants for the Federal Trade Commis- 
sion at salaries from $1,800 to $3,600; for examiners of 
accounts for the Interstate Commerce Commission at sal- 
aries from $2,220 to $3,000; for investigators in accounting 
and office management at salaries from $2,000 to $3,000; for 
experts to devise new systems, or to verify income and 
excess-profits tax returns for the Treasury Department; 
for senior and junior cost accountants ; for resident and 
traveling auditors. During January and February 1919, 4 
women and 244 men were appointed to accountancy positions 
under the federal government, the women's salaries rang- 
ing from $1,400 to $2,000 ; the men's from $1,200 to $5,000. ^ 

^ Women in the Government Service. Bulletin No. 8, Women's 
Bureau (1920). 



238 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

A woman head of a division in the Bureau of Internal 
Revenue of the Treasury Department is receiving a salary 
of $5,cxx>. State and municipal governments likewise re- 
quire accountants. The complexities of the new taxes have 
created a demand for accountants who are specialists in 
taxation. The prospective federal Budget Bureau and other 
applications of budget making suggest opportunities. 

As these figures suggest, women are only beginning to go 
into accounting as a profession. But their number is in- 
creasing; and there are a few women certified public ac- 
countants. The lower salaries received by women are in 
large measure due to their inferior training and brief ex- 
perience. Thoroughly equipped women stand a good chance 
of salaries equal to those of men of similar quaHfications. 
It is highly important for women to keep in mind that ac- 
counting techniques are only the instruments of the 
profession, and can be successfully used only by workers 
with an understanding of their background and purpose and 
with a keen interest in the problems to be solved by their 
means. Mere accounting clerks have little claim to pro- 
fessional status. The ability to interpret results and to in- 
corporate them in clear and cogent reports is essential to 
the professional accountant. 

In the past, it has been difficult to draw the line between 
two comparatively new commercial occupations, that of 
filing expert or supervisor and that of business librarian. 
Modern library techniques and appliances have been adapted 
to the filing of business correspondence, documents, and rec- 
ords of all sorts; and modern business has increasingly 
made use of reference material in the form of catalogues, 
trade journals, government and commercial reports and 
statistics. In many cases women with library training have 
successfully handled both the installing and the supervision 
of a modern filing department and the management of a 
business reference library for the use of the executive and 
expert staff of the organization. During the war librarians 
were in great demand for filing service in government 
departments. But with the amplification of business filing 
systems and methods on the one hand and of information 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 239 

and research departments on the other, there is coming to 
be a clearer distinction between filing supervisors and 
librarians. Filing is seen to be an arm of office service; 
librarianship an arm of staff service. The filing expert 
needs a thorough understanding of business administration 
and office practice in general and of the business with which 
she is connected in particular, rather than a full Hbrary 
training. The techniques of filing and indexing she may 
acquire at a school of filing, a number of which now exist, 
cr through apprenticeship in a good filing department. All 
manufacturers of filing apparatus issue bulletins on the 
subject, and there is a special journal, Filing, published in 
New York. The Library Bureau has recently issued a 
bulletin, Filing as a Profession for Women (1919). A 
woman who is constantly studying the filing problems of her 
firm and seeking to improve its system, and who supervises a 
corps of filing clerks, may be said to occupy a position with 
many professional responsibilities. 

The business librarian, however, needs a professional li- 
brary training and specialization in commercial materials 
and methods. Her work more and more tends to ally itself 
with the departments of planning and research, information 
and publicity. In smaller organizations, she herself some- 
times does statistical work, or prepares reports, trade cata- 
logs and other publicity material. She may be editor or as- 
sistant editor of a "house organ." Her work has been un- 
standardized and in process of evolution but is becoming 
more clearly defined. In the past, business librarianship has 
been one of the best available ways for educated women to 
secure a thorough understanding of all sides of a business 
and one of the best avenues of promotion. In the future, 
it is more likely to lead to positions in research and in- 
formation departments than to executive positions. But 
it is in itself a type of special librarianship and of permanent 
professional value. The business librarian needs to be 
quick to see the needs of her organization, to have her 
material readily available for busy executives, and at times 
to call it to their attention. (See Chapter XVIII.) She 
needs to keep in close touch with other special libraries and 
Librarians. 



240 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Commercial research is a newer development than in- 
dustrial research, but is following much the same lines. It 
may be carried on by a single organization; by a group 
of organizations, as in the case of the Retail Research Asso- 
ciation; or by special service organizations, such as the 
Babson Statistical Organization. It includes investigation 
and information as well as research in the narrower sense, 
and has for its object the more intelligent and effective con- 
duct of commercial enterprises through a careful study of 
their methods of operation, a comparison with other enter- 
prises of the same kind, and the introduction of improve- 
ments through carefully controlled experiments. It studies 
problems of merchandising, buying, selling, and personnel; 
and makes use of accounts, business statistics, and various 
efficiency and psychological tests. The attitude of mind 
required, the methods of collecting and controlling facts 
and working out new theories and programs, do not differ 
from those necessary in investigation and research of any 
kind. An adequate knowledge of commercial principles, 
facts, and practices can be acquired only through profes- 
sional training of a high type including field training in in- 
vestigation and calling preferably for the doctor's degree 
and at least for a master's degree. The newness of com- 
mercial research as well as its character and range may be 
gathered from several recent books on the subject. There 
is a growing demand for business statisticians who shall 
be not merely routine statistical clerks but able to plan and 
interpret as well as to collect and tabulate facts.^ Since 
commercial research is only in its lusty beginnings, it offers 
an especially promising field for women of the right type 
who are willing to take the proper training. It is a field 
also in which achievement is likely to be more readily recog- 
nized than in the field of commercial management. 

The new ideas and practices in regard to training both 
routine and professional commercial workers provide a 
larger opportunity for women in commercial education. It 
is no longer a matter of teaching stenography, typewriting, 

* See Duncan, Commercial Research (1919) ; J. G. Frederick, 
Business Research and Statistics (1920) ; M. T. Copeland, Business 
Statistics (1917). 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 241 

bookkeeping, and the rudiments of office practice in com- 
mercial high schools or business schools run for profit. 
Even in high schools, the work of the Federal Board for 
Vocational Education, chambers of commerce, and other 
agencies is making the instruction less formal; and plans 
are on foot for part-time practice work in business offices. 
The growth of vestibule and service schools in business cor- 
porations is a challenge to women of education and experi- 
ence to work on the many problems of training in service.^ 
As yet, women have taken practically no part in the instruc- 
tion in university schools of business. But as they secure 
more important commercial posts, and there are more 
women students in these schools, such positions are likely 
to open to them. 

Professional preparation for commercial positions is rap- 
idly broadening in scope, and is to be found in institutions 
of several types: (i) higher institutions for women with 
secretarial departments and special one-year courses for 
graduates of academic colleges — such as Simmons College, 
the Connecticut College for Women, Rockford, .Milwaukee- 
Downer, and Mills Colleges, the Margaret Morrison Car- 
negie School of the Carnegie Institute, Drexel and Lewis 
Institutes; (2) university schools of commerce and business 
administration — such as the schools of the universities of 
California, Chicago, Illinois, Minnesota, and Washington, 
the School of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance of New 
York University, the Columbia School of Business, the 
Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration; (3) 
special higher business schools not connected with univer- 
sities — such as the Alexander Hamilton and Pace Institutes 
in New York and the new Babson Institute near Boston; 
(4) university extension and cooperative courses for com- 
mercial workers already in service — such as courses in for- 
eign trade, taxation, finance, and so on, given by New York, 
Columbia, and Boston Universities; (5) courses given by 
business corporations themselves — such as those of the 
Larkin Company in Buffalo, the rubber companies, the 
William Filene Sons Company in Boston, the National City 

* See Publications of National Association of Corporation Schools. 



242 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Bank, and the Henry L. Doherty Company in New York. 
Some of these are only beginning to train other than clerical 
workers. 

An increasing number of young college women, especially 
in the west, are equipping themselves for business not 
through "secretarial courses" but through university schools 
of commerce and business. A group of such young women 
came to Washington during the war in the wake of their 
professors who were acting as experts in various capacities 
for the government. They collected and organized infor- 
mation with regard to the world's supply of raw and manu- 
factured products, their distribution and control. They 
constructed price tables ; they made shipping and tonnage 
charts ; they became familiar with market fluctuations for 
each commodity. They grew to be authorities on wool and 
leather and sugar and wheat. And they did their work 
largely under men who were leading business men in these 
several fields, and who thus became aware of college 
women as a new professional labor supply. 

The professional schools of commerce and business pre- 
pare for a wide range of commercial occupations, offering 
such courses as business organization and administration, 
office organization and procedure, business statistics, ac- 
countancy, foreign trade and shipping, economic and in- 
dustrial history, economic geography, transportation, bank- 
ing and finance, public utilities, insurance, advertising and 
trade journalism, employment management, marketing, and 
business psychology. The Harvard School maintains a 
Bureau of Business Research, and has made intensive 
studies of the wholesale and retail shoe and grocery busi- 
nesses. These schools recommend as pre-professional 
undergraduate courses elementary economics and finance, 
history, modern languages including Spanish, physiography, 
chemistry and physics, mathematics through calculus, and 
a knowledge of mechanical drawing. 

There is no one way of securing commercial positions 
with a professional future. A list of progressive commer- 
cial organizations with modern employment and training 
departments and systems of promotion is greatly needed. 
Professional schools of business have many connections. and 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 243 

calls for their students. A number of commercial organi- 
zations write directly to the colleges when they wish be- 
ginners of good general education; and others make use of 
the bureaus of occupations for trained women and of the 
better type of business agencies. Many advertise in appro- 
priate newspapers or trade journals. Direct application by 
letter with a request for an interview still has advantages. 
This method is less hit-or-miss now that so many firms 
are installing personnel departments, and know more defi- 
nitely in advance the workers they are likely to need. A 
perusal of the ''Help Wanted" columns for both men and 
women in such a commercial advertising medium as the 
New York Sunday Times reveals the different opportunities 
of the sexes and also furnishes in many cases what are in 
effect "personnel specifications" prepared by various firms. 
Nineteen women in office positions filling our schedules 
reported salaries in 1918 and 1919 ranging from $1,020 to 
$2,700 with a median salary of $1,500. Seven secretaries 
received salaries ranging from $1,020 to $2,650 with a 
median salary of $1,300; seven office-managers received 
salaries ranging from $1,040 to $1,820 with a median salary 
of $1,500; two other managers received salaries of $1,060 
and $1,600; three filing supervisors received salaries rang- 
ing from $1,500 to $2,700 with a median salary of $2,650. 
Nine of these women are college graduates, six with an 
additional year of secretarial training at Simmons College ; 
four have had partial college training, legal training, or 
normal training; the other six are high-school graduates. 
All but one of the secretaries are college graduates; three 
of the seven office managers ; none of the filing supervisors. 
The median length of service for the college group is four 
years ; for the non-college group, thirteen and a half years. 
While the salary figures on their face are not encouraging 
to the college graduate thinking of going into business, since 
the median salary of the college group is only $1,300; of 
the Simmons group only $1,370; of the miscellaneous group 
$1,550; and of the non-college group $1,660, they are based 
on too few instances to warrant general conclusions, and 
probably mean only that college women are a new labor 
supply in the commercial world, and have been prone to 



244 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

sidetrack themselves as secretaries.^ During the war many 
federal departments established a salary scale for stenog- 
raphers of from $1,200 to $1,400; for secretaries of from 
$1,500 to $1,800, with higher rates for "executive assistants" ; 
for accounting clerks and statistical assistants of from 
$1,200 to $1,800. The Bureau of Vocational Information 
says that salaries for junior accountants range from $1,000 
to $1,800; for senior accountants from $2,000 to $3,500 or 
more; in independent practice, fees are from $10 to $20 a 
day for juniors and at least $25 a day for seniors. ^ No 
woman performing genuinely secretarial duties should ac- 
cept to-day an initial salary of less than $1,500. Secretaries 
of experience and carrying considerable responsibihty are re- 
ceiving salaries up to $3,000 and even beyond.^ Exceptional 
women in managerial positions already command large sal- 
aries, and the number, range, and compensation of such 
positions are increasing. It only remains for college and 
professional women to display the persistence, inteUigence, 
and courage needed in modern commercial work and thus 
to prove beyond a doubt that they are capable of being more 
than clerks and subordinates. They will have to earn pro- 
motion as young college men earn it; and they must never 
forget that assumptions of belonging to a superior educa- 
tional or social group are serious handicaps to commercial 
success, as, indeed, they are coming to be everywhere. Edu- 
cation tells, not where a person begins, but where that per- 
son comes out. 

^ Non-commercial office workers report as follows : Secretaries 
to college executives or departments, $728 to $1,200 with a median 
salary of $1,000; secretaries to executives of large social organiza- 
tions, $1,560 and $1,800 j secretaries with executive responsibilities 
in educational and social organizations, $1,500 to $2,000 with a 
median salary of $1,800; secretary of a hospital X-ray department, 
$1,140; secretaries to philanthropic women, $1,140 and $3,000; sec- 
retary to a municipal board, $1,500. 

^ Vocations for Business and Professional Women (1919). 

* During 1920, advertisements in the New York Times of posi- 
tions to be filled by commercial employment agencies show salaries 
for experienced women office workers ranging from $25 to $40 a 
week. A report on salaries of women office workers in New York 
City issued in 1920 by the Merchants' Association gives a range of 
from $25 to $70 a week. 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 245 

Some of our schedules show the overlapping duties of 
women in office positions, and make shrewd comments on 
the prospects in this field. A young Simmons graduate 
who is secretary to the treasurer of two large corporations 
says : *'I keep private accounts, do shorthand, typewriting, 
and filing, plot cost charts and statistics, make reports of 
stock markets, meet people, see all cotton brokers, read all 
reports or articles, such as war-taxes, Babson's financial re- 
ports, Connmerce and Finance; in short, do everything to 
save the time of my employer. . . My salary is raised 
automatically a hundred dollars a year. ... If possible 
after graduating from college, I would advise a girl to 
spend another year at some college to get a master's degree. 
This I am trying to do now, having gone to ... . University 
in the evening last year, and I expect to study at Columbia 
this summer." 

Another young woman, a graduate of Radcliffe and Sim- 
mons, is secretary and assistant to the salesmanager of the 
hospital sales department of a firm manufacturing surgical 
dressings. She says : "I organize the work of the depart- 
ment, answer correspondence, check and solicit sales, adjust 
claims and complaints." She seems to be an assistant 
manager rather than a secretary, since she carries consid- 
erable independent responsibility. 

A graduate of Vassar and Simmons is secretary in the 
industrial bureau of a great merchants' association. She 
says : 'T dictate answers to part of the correspondence, an- 
swer industrial inquiries, inaugurate files of all sorts, work 
up statistics, and in general act as assistant to the manager, 
who is the only one above me. ... I should advise women 
not to enter as stenographers but as secretaries. ... If I 
were to do the thing over, I should omit shorthand and type- 
Writing. I think a college education will get you ahead 
faster without it. This position cannot be considered as 
anything but a school for an ambitious woman because 
there is no future requiring more than ordinarily good rou- 
tine thought. College women who fancy they are going 
to be satisfied helping some wonderful professor or benefi- 
cent social worker will soon realize that they are too big 
for this sort of thing, that they need an outlet for their 



246 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

own ability rather than a place in which they serve to 
develop the ability of others." 

A Simmons woman who is private secretary to a lawyer 
and who was previously an assistant registrar in a college 
and with a well-known law firm says : "I do shorthand, 
typewriting, bookkeeping, and keeping of records. I attend 
to all details of investments, prepare income tax reports, and 
keep trustees' accounts. I meet and dispose of callers. . . . 
I have found it desirable to perfect my knowledge of French 
and to familiarize myself with certain laws, especially those 
relating to taxation. Practically all my secretarial train- 
ing has been useful. . . . Shorthand and typewriting were 
indispensable. For my position a college education and ex- 
perience in a law office are required." In seven years her 
salary has been increased from $1,500 to $2,650. 

A Wellesley and Simmons woman is office-manager in a 
law firm. She says : "I keep a set of corporation books ; I 
have general oversight of 'supplies, repairs, equipment, rec- 
ords, etc. I distribute work for the office, see applicants, 
answer inquiries, and have general supervision. The policy 
of my employers is to employ women at current rates in all 
positions where the profit to the firm is as great as it would 
be were a man employed. In my secretarial training, busi- 
ness administration and office appliances might well have 
received more emphasis." . 

A chief clerk or office manager with a firm dealing in 
paper makers' supplies and maintaining a bureau of in- 
vestigation and statistics for certain branches of paper 
manufacture, is responsible to the general manager. She 
says : **I have general charge of all correspondence and 
supervision of routine. I am responsible for securing all 
clerks and conducting their work. I carry out all the office 
policies under the instructions of the management. . . . My 
advice to other women is to perform faithfully and intel- 
ligently the work required of you and to strive to outgrow 
what you see in store for you in the way of advancement, 
so that in facing the possibility of reaching your limit in 
an organization, you will be ready for new fields." She is 
not a college woman, and after ten years with the firm 
receives a salary of $1,820. 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 247 

Another woman is assistant to the manager of the truck 
tire department in the branch office of a. great rubber com- 
pany. She says : "I have charge of the correspondence, 
supervision of stock, service station, and all matters per- 
taining to the department. I am in charge during the 
manager's absence. Women are not employed in this de- 
partment in any other of the company's branches." She 
is not a college graduate, but has taken some college courses 
while employed. 

A woman for many years employed by a firm of patent 
attorneys has charge of the details of foreign patent work, 
trade-mark registration, bookkeeping, and record work. 
She has taken a law course at an evening school of law. 
She says : "Except that it is preferable to have men attor- 
neys to meet men clients, I think employers are indifferent 
as to whether men or women make up their office force." 

The attitude of the younger professional women in busi- 
ness is shown by a file systematizer in the experimental sta- 
tion of a great chemical and explosives company who says : 
'T study the business, perfect a filing system, install it, 
train clerks, and so on. . . . My advice is, don't build too 
small. There is plenty of room for intelligence and initia- 
tive. Study business organization. I have found chemistry, 
economics, finance, and accounting most useful in my work- 
ing experience. My employers are glad to pay traveling 
expenses when I wish to visit other filing departments, 
which I have done extensively." This young woman has 
had numerous college courses and two years' study in a 
university school of business as well as a course at a school 
of filing. She receives a salary of $2,600 a year. 

A young woman of twenty-four with some normal school 
training and previous experience as a telegraph clerk and 
life insurance agent is chief file clerk in a western oil pipe 
line company. She files correspondence, sorts mail, directs 
messenger force, and answers inquiries, receiving a salary 
of $1,500. 



In the mercantile branch of commercial service, profes- 
sional women, as has been said, occupy a much more im- 



248 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

portant place in retail than in wholesale trade, and have 
devoted themselves to study of the problems of retail sell- 
ing in the department store and almost not at all to the 
problems of outside selHng, except so far as they are dealt 
w^ith through advertising, discussed in Chapter XV. The 
interest of educated v^omen in department store v^ork and 
their systematic training for it have been due until very 
recently almost entirely to the pioneer school of retail sales- 
manship in Boston, conducted since 1905 under the direction 
of Mrs. Lucinda W. Prince and under the joint auspices 
of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union and 
Simmons College.^ In 1918 it became the Prince School 
of Education for Store Service, affiliated with these educa- 
tional agencies, with eighteen Boston department stores and 
specialty shops, and with the National Retail Drygoods As- 
sociation. Originally a training class for retail saleswomen 
(which still continues), the school soon devoted its main 
efforts to providing a year's course of training for educated 
women to fit them for positions as "educational directors" 
in department stores, teaching the principles and practice of 
retail selling to the force behind the counters, or as teachers 
of retail salesmanship in public school vocational classes. 
The preparation of these teachers has from the first involved 
frequent observation and actual "shop practice" as sales- 
women in certain cooperating department stores in Boston. 
It has been, in fact, a conspicuous demonstration of the 
practicability of cooperation between a professional school 
and commercial establishments, and the first undertaking 
of the sort organized exclusively for women. The Prince 
School is now enlarging the scope of its work to include 
the training of "other executives in charge of personnel 
work in stores." Over a hundred of its graduates are edu- 
cational directors in department stores throughout the coun- 
try, teachers of salesmanship in public school systems, ex- 

* See Helen R. Norton. Department Store Education. Bulletin 
U. S. Bureau of Education, No. 9 (1917). A Text-Book on Retail 
Selling (1919). Lucinda W. Prince. Retail Selling. Bulletin No. 
22. Federal Board for Vocational Education (1918). Positions of 
Responsibility in Department Store Organisations. Bulletin No. 5. 
Bureau of Vocational Information (1921). Beulah E. Kennard. 
The Educational Director (1918). 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 249 

perts in government service, managers in commercial and 
industrial establishments. 

A more recent undertaking is the Research Bureau for 
Retail Training of the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 
Pittsburgh, established in 1918 "to increase the professional 
spirit in retailing." This Bureau is part of the Division of 
Applied Psychology, which also includes the Bureau of 
Salesmanship Research, established in 1916 and devoted to 
the problems of wholesale or "outside" selling. The' Bureau 
of Retail Research is backed by seven Pittsburgh depart- 
ment stores, and works in cooperation with them and with 
the public school system. It not only trains professional 
workers for the employment and training departments of 
retail stores and teachers of salesmanship for the public 
schools, but also carries on research in the problems of 
retail selling. It enrolls a limited number of picked men 
and women, and is on a graduate basis. In 1919-1920 it 
offered eight fellowships of $500. In 1919 New York 
University also opened a Training School for Teachers of 
Retail Selling with a two-year course on a graduate basis 
and with the cooperation of twenty department stores in 
New York City. 

Another organization in the retail field is the Retail Re- 
search Association formed in 191 7 by eighteen department 
stores throughout the country, to which have lately been 
added Harrod's in London and the Galerie Lafayette in 
Paris. It maintains offices in both these cities and a central 
office in New York, which comprises a merchandise divi- 
sion operating a cooperative merchandising or buying cor- 
poration and an organization division including a planning 
department and research and information services, at the 
disposal of the member stores. It makes the experience of 
each available to the others; conducts upon request special 
studies of individual stores or departments ; studies general 
problems of organization and operation ; and functions to 
some extent as an employment clearing-house and a training 
center. 

The National Retail Drygoods Association is in cordial 
sympathy with these various efforts to develop professional 
training and standards in the drygoods field. Experiments 



250 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

and progress are reported in the influential trade journal 
Wometi's Wear. Positions in department stores may be 
best secured through advertisement in this journal; through 
direct application to the employment departments of the 
various stores ; or, in the case of exceptionally well qualified 
persons, through the Retail Research Association, which 
sometimes advertises for executive workers for its members 
in the New York daily papers. 

The variety of responsible positions held by women in 
department stores is indicated by three employers' schedules 
returned by large stores in New England, the Middle West. 
and on the Pacific Coast. One says: "Almost every type of 
executive position in the store is or has been held by a 
woman. We have 172 men executives; 165 women execu- 
tives. We have various training methods, including a spe- 
cial training group for quick development of potential ex- 
ecutives. There are many executive positions with us 
where we consider women more efficient than men and 
vice versa. We have found that our women executives 
average practically as high as the men in permanency of 
employment. Among non-executives, we find that women 
are not as permanent as men, due mostly to their being in 
business for a livelihood until such time as they marry. . . . 
Undeniably a college woman is much more valuable as a 
result of her advanced education, but we have found thai 
if an individual is of the right type, she will succeed, even 
with the handicap of lack of higher education. The war 
has undeniably given many women a chance to prove con- 
clusively that they are capable of bigger things than have 
commonly been entrusted to them in the past. Women are 
undoubtedly in industry to stay." 

Another says : 'We have a woman assistant superinten- 
dent, assistants to other executives, an educational director, 
a welfare director, a service director, buyers, and assistants. 
We employ men and women in about the same numbers 
except in the five or six most important executive positions. 
We find that the efficiency varies with the individual, noi 
the sex, except in the five or six most important positions, 
which are better filled by men. Both turnover and length 
of employment are approximately the same in both sexes. 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 251 

Comparison between college and non-college women is diffi- 
cult because of the small number of college women used. 
We think the percentage of success and failure about the 
same as among less educated women." 

Another says : "We have a woman advertising manager, 
a woman welfare director, and a woman training director, 
as well as women buyers and assistant buyers, floor man- 
agers, employment, stock, and office workers. The relative 
efficiency of men and women varies with the nature of the 
work. Men are physically better for certain classes of 
work, women, in general, are more efficient in detail work. 
We find that college women usually lack the practical ex- 
perience which the non-college women of their age have 
had." 

Women in department stores filling our schedules include 
four educational directors in establishments in New Eng- 
land, Pennsylvania, and the Middle West ; a buyer of coats 
and suits, a restaurant manager, a department head with a 
hundred people under her, in metropolitan eastern cities; 
and three recreation and welfare workers not connected 
with organized personnel departments. Returns from four 
women in department store personnel work have been given 
in Chapter XI. The educational directors' salaries ranged in 
1918 from $1,560 to $2,500 with a median salary of $2,000; 
the buyer received $4,500, having begun in 1914 as a sales- 
woman at ten dollars a week; the restaurant manager re- 
ceived $3,120; the department head, $10,000; the recreation 
and welfare workers from $1,040 for a beginner just out 
of college to $2,400. ^ Of the educational directors, three are 
college graduates, and one is a normal school graduate with 
college courses. All have had previous teaching experience 
ranging from one year to twelve years. Three are gradu- 
ates of the Boston School of Salesmanship, now the Prince 
School; one has had courses in salesmanship in two uni- 
versity schools of business administration. The buyer was 
educated in a well-known private school. The restaurant 
manager taught for nine years before going into her present 

* For more recent salaries, see Positions of Responsibility in De- 
partment Store Organisations. Bulletin No. 5. Bureau of Voca- 
tional Information (1921). 



252 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

occupation. The department manager is a college gradu- 
ate, who reached her present position through service as 
advertising writer and foreign buyer for the firm. She is 
one of the most successful women executives in the mer- 
cantile world. Of the three welfare workers, one is coun- 
selor of an employees' association, and is a married woman 
with considerable experience in social and recreation work 
with young people. She visits sick employees, organizes 
social activities, and does general welfare work throughout 
the store. The other two are young college graduates. 
One of them at the age of twenty-four has the title of 
"store matron." The other has charge of clubs for em- 
ployees, dramatics, gymnastics, and dancing. She has done 
some social case work and has also been an actress. These 
young women are in the department of training, which is 
in charge of a man. They are responsible to the manage- 
ment and not at all to the employees. 

Some of the comments are as follows: *T consider the 
policies and organization of my employer the most striking 
example that I know of industrial democracy." 

"Make yourself efficient, and no employer can long go- 
without recognizing your ability. This is shown time and 
time again in store work." 

"Preserve a humble attitude at first, as the number of 
unthinkable things one may do wrong in a department store 
is very large. The red tape is terrible." 

"To do practical store work, gain the point of view of 
the salesperson." 

"Common sense, imagination, and a psychological study 
of the buying public are the keynotes. As a buyer, dress 
well, be neat, have a sense of humor, fall back on plain 
common sense when in doubt, mind your own business, and 
never be tired." 



Closely allied to the department store but with distinctive 
organization and problems are the great mail-order houses ; 
and in them, too, are openings for professional women, 
either already existing or to be won through intelligence and 
determination. The growing number of chain-store sys- 



OFFICE AND MERCANTILE SERVICES 253 

terns affords another opportunity. Both these types of dis- 
tribution provide excellent business training for socially- 
minded women who wish to prepare themselves for posi- 
tions as managers, buyers, or other executives in true co- 
operative societies. 

Mail-order houses and chain-store systems also form a 
connecting link between "inside" and **outside" selling. 
Wholesale salesmanship and salesmanagement is a field into 
which few professional women have ventured, but which 
lies just before them. A study of the "Help Wanted" col- 
umns of any metropolitan daily shows that "saleswomen" 
means women behind the counter ; "salesmen" means in the 
large majority of cases men "on the road." A well-known 
firm engaged in the manufacture and distribution of watches 
is at present trying out a group of young college women as 
salesmanagers in experimental territory. They do not have 
any women regularly on the road, but have sent some out 
for periods of from two weeks to two months to get sales 
experience for their experimental branch work. With 
salesmanship and salesmanagement calling for a high type 
of worker and with opportunities for professional training 
offered by the university schools of business and by such 
organizations as the Carnegie Institute Bureau of Sales- 
manship Research, they offer a practical challenge to the 
woman who likes to prove her capacity in new lines of 
work.^ 

Women in business for themselves are not considered in 
this volume, since individual cases vary so greatly. But 
women in growing numbers are successfully managing busi- 
nesses of their own of many sorts. In addition to the 
requisite amount of capital, they need the same knowledge 
of business organization and administration, the same pro- 
fessional attitude toward its problems that are needed by 
the professional business woman on a salary. 

^ See Eleanor Gilbert. The Ambitious Woman in Business (1916), 
Chapter 14. 



CHAPTER XIV 

COMMERCIAL SERVICES! BANKING, INSURANCE, PUBLIC UTIL- 
ITIES, REAL ESTATE 

Banking, insurance, public utilities, and real estate are 
specialized commercial services devised to facilitate the 
exchange, accumulation, and protection of property and the 
extension of credit. They are all concerned primarily with 
matters of finance and with the selling of special types of 
service. Although they are still for the most part under 
private corporation management, their public character and 
importance are indicated by the growing body of legislation 
for their control; and the first two, as well as the third, 
might well be called ''public utilities." This is as yet far 
less true of real estate, perhaps because land and buildings 
are thought of as tangible commodities, to be bought and 
soLd individually like other commodities, and not as forms 
of common service. But since the war, there are signs that 
the public utility idea is extending to housing and to natural 
resources ; and real property plays a large part in the trans- 
actions of the other three services. Many savings banks 
and investment companies deal largely in mortgages. 

Banking, in which we are including the selling of bonds 
and other investment securities and also stock-broking, is a 
practically new occupation for women workers other than 
clerical. It has attracted of late somewhat more attention 
than it merits, since its opportunities for professional women 
to advance beyond a limited point are still problematical. 
But during the war many women replaced men in banks, and 
other women achieved success in selling "Liberty Bonds," 
so that bank officials have become aware of women as a 
labor supply, and are even encouraging them along certain 
lines. Before the war, one or two of the great metropolitan 
banks had begun to approach the women's colleges for a 

254 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 255 

small group of picked apprentices in the same way, although 
not to the same extent, that they were approaching the men's 
colleges. Since the war, they are employing young women 
just out of college in considerably larger numbers. Some 
of them are giving women definite training, and are "routing 
them through" the departments in order to initiate them into 
banking organization and processes. But there is a ten- 
dency to differentiate their training from that of young 
men of the same educational groups through giving them 
courses in stenography and typewriting. They are still 
looked upon largely as a supplementary labor supply to be 
prepared for the more recently developed and adjunct 
services in modern banking — librarianship, filing, personnel 
or "service" work, editorial work, statistical and other "re- 
search" work — rather than as part of the general supply of 
potential executive material. There is still a widespread 
feeling that they cannot deal directly with customers, al- 
though a number of exceptions have been made of late. 

The position of professional women in banking has, how- 
ever, reached the stage where it is likely to develop rapidly, 
and where the nature of that development will depend 
largely upon the attitude of women themselves. They need 
to realize clearly that modern banking is a highly technical 
profession, still preponderatingly a man's occupation; to 
understand the possible lines of promotion and to expect 
it when, but only when, they have fully demonstrated 
capacity. They need to cultivate a professional group 
spirit and to formulate professional standards and policies. 
For the present, they would probably do well to form asso- 
ciations or clubs of women professional bank workers as 
well as to join men's banking organizations to which they 
are eligible. 

The past few years have seen a remarkable development 
of the scope and methods of banking in the United States. 
The Federal Reserve system, which did not become opera- 
tive until late in 1914, provides for the first time a country- 
wide banking system through its twelve regional banks, 
with both large and small member banks sharing in man- 
agement. It ties the two hundred and thirty-three clear- 
ing-houses into something like a national clearance system ', 



256 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

both facilitates and stabilizes credits ; and furnishes a finan- 
cial machinery comparable to that of foreign countries, 
through which may be carried on our greatly extended share 
in international finance and international trade. The adop- 
tion of "trade acceptances" also fosters commercial dealings 
with other countries. The new generation of professional 
workers in banking will be required to have an active knowl- 
edge of world trade resources, world banking systems and 
practices, and modern banking methods, that were unknown 
except to a few far-sighted leaders before the war, A pro- 
fession long held to be conspicuously conservative is be- 
coming almost a profession in the making. 

A lecturer to classes of bank workers conducted by the 
American Institute of Banking says: "Every young man 
who goes into a bank . . . should make up his mind very 
early that the work is not easy and the only way he may 
succeed is to begin a systematic study of banking as a 
science. . . . Banking is a profession based upon scientific 
data. The physician cannot hope to learn medicine through 
experience and experiment upon his own body. . . . Many 
bankers, and especially the younger and inexperienced, de- 
ceive themselves with the idea that they can learn all they 
need to know by close application to their own immediate 
desks, counters, and communities. Just as the science of 
surgery and medicine is based upon the natural laws of the 
human body, so the science of banking grows out of eco- 
nomic laws that are at the basis of all business activity. . . . 
*A successful banker is composed of about one-fifth ac- 
countant, two-fifths lawyer, three-fifths political economist, 
and four-fifths gentleman and scholar — total ten-fifths — 
double-size. Any smaller person may be a pawnbroker or 
a promoter, but not a banker.' " ^ 

A high official of the National City Bank of New York 
said in an address to Yale seniors on the topic of foreign 
banking: "If you have decided to go into the banking field, 
then, no matter what bank you may start in or what posi- 
tion you may hold, plan your reading and your studies along 
lines that will make you a broader American. Study com- 
modity banking and foreign exchange. Go to the bottom 
*C. H. Wolfe. Elementary Banking (ipiS)- 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 257 

of every foreign transaction that comes under your notice, 
and, of most importance, keep eternally at foreign lan- 
guages. A speaking knowledge of commercial Spanish, 
French, and Russian will prove of greatest value to you in 
after life. If you have the language equipment and the 
practical knowledge of banking obtained even in a country 
bank, it will not be long before you will find your oppor- 
tunity. And right here, let me say that there is no better 
training school for foreign banking than the all-round ex- 
perience which a man can obtain in a country bank." ^ 

The National City Bank has for some years provided 
definite courses training young college men as managers of 
branch banks in foreign countries ; but has not yet extended 
these opportunities to college women. The financial institu- 
tions in this country in which women may be employed 
group themselves as commercial or general banks, national 
and state ; savings banks ; trust companies ; so-called private 
banks, which commonly do an investment business in bonds 
and staple stocks; and brokerage firms, buying and selling 
stocks and bonds on commission for customers. The Dis- 
trict Federal Reserve Banks and the District Federal Land 
Banks, which make long-term loans to farmers, are gov- 
ernment institutions. Credit unions, or people's cooperative 
banks, are authorized by law in several states, and are grow- 
ing in number. Building and loan associations are, in effect, 
cooperative banking institutions. 

The stock in trade of banks is surplus money, or capital, 
of which they are the depositaries, and which they lend at 
a fixed rate, part of which goes to depositors in the form 
of interest, part to stockholders, and part as a charge for 
service. Commercial banks deal only in what is called cir- 
culating or fluid capital, rented out as it were, for a brief 
period in the form of short-term loans. Savings banks and 
trust companies deal in certain kinds of fixed or investment 
capital, mortgages, bonds, and other amply secured and 
long-term loans. Banks are not allowed to invest deposi- 
tors' money in stocks, since these are purchased shares in 
a business, the returns from which fluctuate according to 

*W. S. Kies. Opportunities for Young Men in the Foreign 
Field (Pamphlet, 1916). 



258 WOMEN PROFn^SIONAL WORKERS 

earnings. But banks frequently give advice to customers 
about their private investments in bonds and stocks. Some 
of them maintain closely related investment companies, such 
as the National City Company of the National City Bank. 
Some investment houses deal only in bonds, and are knov^^n 
as bond houses. Brokerage houses buy and sell stocks for 
customers on the stock exchange, and are thus connected 
with the speculative market as well as with the investment 
market. Before the war, Americans preferred to invest 
in stocks in spite of their greater risk, since they yield a 
higher rate of interest. But the various government war 
loans have accustomed them to the idea of investing in 
government and other bonds. With world-wide reconstruc- 
tion and development, there is likely to be even greater ex- 
pansion in the buying and selling of the bonds of govern- 
ments, cities, public utility corporations, and the like. 

The groups of workers essential to the conduct of a bank 
are (i) the administrative officers, chosen by the directors 
and responsible for the policies and general financial de- 
cisions of the bank — president, vice-president, and cashier; 
(2) the tellers who actually receive and pay out the de- 
positors' money; (3) the bookkeeping and clerical staff 
who attend to the recording and balancing of all financial 
transactions. In large institutions, these groups become 
major divisions with many departments. In the executive 
division will be such departments as loans, investments, 
credits, auditing, statistics, foreign exchange ; in the tellers* 
division, the paying tellers', the receiving tellers', the note 
tellers', the collection, and the transit departments ; in the 
bookkeeping division, the statement or ledger department, 
the proof, filing, and stenographic departments. Large 
modern banks are maintaining research and information de- 
partments for their own staffs and for their customers, in 
which are to be found bank librarians, financial experts of 
many kinds, editors, and statisticians. Where many loans 
are made, the credit experts who investigate the borrower's 
financial standing and the character of his securities are of 
the highest importance. Where the bank's funds are invested 
largely in bonds, the bond expert appears, calling in the 
services of engineers, lawyers, and others. The bond de- 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 259 

partment of a great Chicago bank advertises : "In making 
the analysis of a recent proposition for a bond issue, we 
employed two lawyers, one accountant, two engineers, an 
expert in municipal government, a tax expert, an industrial 
organizer, in addition to our experts in credit and banking." 
Where there is a foreign department, there are experts in 
foreign trade and foreign securities. There are also experts 
in "floating" loans, domestic and foreign. Where there are 
hundreds of workers, the personnel or "service" department 
may be thoroughly organized ; and there may be a definite 
education or training in service department, with a special 
instructional staff. 

An intensive study of Women in Banking in the City 
of Minneapolis was made between July and October, 1918, 
by the Woman's Occupational Bureau of that city. Before 
the war, about ninety per cent of the bank workers in 
Minneapolis were men; and the ten per cent of women 
were nearly all routine workers. "Probably not more than 
twenty women in April, 191 7, held positions of responsi- 
bility, such as private secretaries, managers or assistant 
managers of departments, and tellers. Fifteen months 
later, we find that over forty per cent of the employees are 
women, more than eighty of whom are employed as private 
secretaries, tellers, managers and assistant managers, . . . 
an increase of more than three hundred per cent in voca- 
tional opportunity for women." Women taken hurriedly 
into banks in the war emergency naturally did not do work 
equal to that of men who had received training in lower 
bank positions, and for the most part they received lower 
salaries. Moreover, the loss of experienced men clerks 
led to a great increase in the use of adding and bookkeep- 
ing machines. But the report is optimistic about the pro- 
fessional future for women in Minneapolis banks. "The 
banks are retaining women as part of their permanent work- 
ing force, . . . and they are recognized as a source of 
supply for promotion to positions of responsibility and 
salary. . . . Women have proved their value as bank em- 
ployees, and the normal expansion of business is absorbing 
a larger number of employees. . . . Tellers, managers and 
assistant managers of departments represent so far the 



26o WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

ultimate vocational opportunity of women in banks. ... A 
college graduate of twenty-four who on August first was 
sorting mail ... in October had been promoted to a posi- 
tion as teller. ... In her former position she had learned 
the kind of work done in every department of the bank, the 
forms for listing various kinds of accounts, the listing, 
proving, and checking of items and the handling of checks 
and drafts — all excellent training for the work of teller. . . . 
Aside from the training through work connected with a 
specific job, woman employees of the large banks partici- 
pate in the training courses offered under the auspices of 
the American Institute of Banking.'* 

Before the war, professional women were beginning to 
be employed in New York banks as file supervisors, libra- 
rians, statisticians, employment or service managers for 
women employees, and to a small extent as managers of 
departments for women customers and as bond salesmen. 
At first, women coming into contact with possible customers 
were chosen largely because of attractive personality and 
wide social acquaintance, rather than because of any special 
training in banking. To-day, they are being increasingly 
selected from women of professional equipment and proved 
capacity. Within a year three New York City trust com- 
panies — one of them perhaps the largest in the world — 
have elected women assistant secretaries, corresponding to 
assistant cashier in a commercial bank. One of these, a 
college woman, had been for two years among the most 
successful bond salesmen of the institution, and before 
that had been connected for several years with a great pub- 
lic utility corporation. Another woman is assistant secre- 
tary-treasurer of a trust company in an adjacent town. A 
woman is manager of a southern clearing house. The 
employment of women trained in home economics as budget 
advisers in banks is described in Chapter VII. 

Bond houses, similar departments of the great banks, and 
general investment houses buy whole issues or large blocks 
of bonds and guaranteed stocks, and retail them to in- 
vestors. The National City Company says : "One of our 
functions is mercantile, and consists of distribution — get- 
ting investment securities from the interests issuing them 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 261 

to the banks, firms, or private investors who wish to buy 
them. Our other function is professional, and consists of 
appraising an investor's own special needs, and advising 
what securities will best meet his requirements with com- 
bined reference to maximum yield and safety. . . . The 
National City Company, like the great factories . . . manu- 
factures a commodity for national distribution. This com- 
modity is a complete service for you as an investor — and 
this requires a large army of officers and producers and 
large areas of floor-space." ^ 

The two main departments of an investment house are 
the buying department, which includes both actual trading 
in the great investment markets and research ; and the office, 
and field selling departments. All issues of bonds or stocks 
are carefully investigated before purchasing. A college 
woman connected with a New York investment house 
writes thus of the buying department: "Picture to 
yourself a group of scholarly pessimists, unwilling to be- 
lieve anything without documentary proof and trusting few 
besides themselves to compile the documents, always analyz- 
ing, always making allowance for a dark future, and you 
have the buying department. Very expert and very few 
in number the buyers are. Women with engineering train- 
ing and those who have shown originality in research in 
chemistry, geology, economics, or law might fitly apply for 
work in this department." ^ As yet, few women have been 
employed in this side of investment work; but there seems 
a chance here for the group with a war-derived knowledge 
of domestic and foreign trade, for the new oil and gas 
geologists (see p. 337), and for women with legal train- 
ing.^ ''The statistical department, information department, 
or library, as it is variously called, is another branch of 
the buying department. Here are kept not only books, 
but financial manuals, periodicals, reports of corporations, 
files of clippings, circulars of other houses, and whatever 

^Men and Bonds (Pamphlet, 1920). 

' Elizabeth F. Cook. Opportunities for Women in Finance. Jour- 
nal of Association of Collegiate Alumnae. Volume XI (1917-1918). 

" See Women in the Law. Bureau of Vocational Information 
Bulletin Three, pp. 73-82. 



262 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

else the buying or sales department is likely to need for 
quick reference. Many houses use the statistical depart- 
ment as the training school for their promising young men. 
Women, too, will generally find it the best door by which 
to enter, as well as the least obstructed. The work is val- 
uable as giving a comprehensive view of the business along 
with the best preparation for more specialized buying or 
selling work." ^ The National City Company says : "The 
research department ... is a tireless 'lookout.' ... Our 
public utility files alone contain more than 20,000 folders." 
On the side of selling securities, a few bond houses, nota- 
bly the William P. Bonright Company, began to employ 
women as bond salesmen before the war. Women made 
excellent records as salesmen in the various "Liberty" and 
"Victory" loan "drives," particularly in the hotel and shop- 
ping districts ; and their position in this type of financial 
work seems assured. In New York they are attached to 
"up-town" branches of banks and investment houses, as well 
as doing outside selling, and are given the regular train- 
ing of securities salesmen. The idea at first was that they 
should sell particularly to women customers ; but some of 
them have been equally successful with men. In fact, many 
men are looking for an investment expert, whether man or 
woman; while some women still have less business confi- 
dence in a woman than in a man. In most cases, 
salesmen are provided with a drawing account up to a cer- 
tain figure, and are then paid a commission on their sales. 
A few firms, however, think that better results are secured 
through paying a salary with some form of bonus or com- 
mission. The work requires the ability to approach and 
convince people, presence, dignity, objectivity, sagacity, and 
vigorous health. While some employers and some women 
think that "feminine charm" may be capitalized as a busi- 
ness asset, in the long run such an attitude probably loses 
more customers than it secures. Initial earnings in securities 
selling are small; but success or failure is quickly deter- 
mined, and for a woman who succeeds, the income may be 
practically what she determines to make it. Bond and se- 

* Elizabeth F. Cook. Opportunities for Women in Finance. Jour- 
nal of A. C. A., Volume XL 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 263 

curities selling is a valuable training for more important 
positions. Few women other than clerical have been em- 
ployed in brokerage firms ; but in rare cases, women have 
shown exceptional ability as traders in the speculative 
market. 

A good background for professional work in banks and 
other financial institutions is given through college courses 
in economics, banking and finance, and statistics. The uni- 
versity schools of commerce and business administration 
provide professional training through both regular and 
extension courses. New York University has a Wall 
Street Branch of its School of Commerce, Accounts, and 
Finance, designed for those employed in the financial dis- 
trict. A number of great banking institutions have their 
own education departments. Investment houses, such as 
the National City Company and the Henry L. Doherty Com- 
pany, conduct bond and securities schools for salesmen, to 
which women have been admitted. The American Institute 
of Banking has about 23,000 students in its various chapters. 
In 1918-1919 women were admitted as associate members. 
The standard course is three years in length, and is open 
to men and women employed in banks. The New York 
City Chapter has about 4,000 students, of whom some 200 
are women. One woman was graduated in 1920, complet- 
ing the course in a little over two years. The National 
City Bank, which has worked out perhaps the most compre- 
hensive scheme of training in service for men says: *'An 
extra effort was made to get college women — women of 
broad preliminary training and possessing great possibilities 
for success in positions of responsibility. These college 
graduates were immediately put to work learning type- 
writing and stenography. They also studied the corre- 
spondence files of the department to which they were to be 
sent. In a comparatively short time they were given an 
outline for simple letters which they were to write. When 
a letter came from a correspondent or a customer with ref- 
erence to his account, the entire folder of that correspon- 
dence was turned over to one of these girls. She digested 
the contents and wrote the reply. By selecting girls of real 
ability and splendid training, and entrusting to them real re- 



264 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

sponsibilities (stenography and typewriting was merely a 
stepping stone), the bank is developing women who are not 
only expert letter writers, but who are learning to assume 
many responsibilities heretofore carried by officers." 

Women looking forward to professional work in banks 
are urged to meditate upon this last quotation. In general, 
they need a liking for figures and for financial relations and 
problems ; an ability to handle impersonal details without 
being swamped by them ; and above all an interest and belief 
in the modern financial system. Otherwise they may find 
themselves caught in a great machine with the operations 
of which they have no fundamental sympathy. 

Employment is likely to be secured through direct appli- 
cation to the employment or personnel departments of 
financial institutions; by replying to the not infrequent ad- 
vertisements of these organizations; through the higher 
grade business employment agencies, such as the National 
Employment Exchange in New York and the Business 
Men's Clearing House in Chicago; through higher institu- 
tions; and through the bureaus of occupations for trained 
women. 

Two large New York banks and five women in banking 
positions filled our schedules. One bank has two women 
department heads, two managers, fourteen secretaries, 
twelve stenographers, and a hundred and forty-four clerks. 
The other gives no figures, but reports women in executive, 
managerial, secretarial, stenographic, and typing positions. 
The first employs men and women in a fifty-fifty ratio in 
secretarial work; in a five to one ratio in clerical work. 
Promotion is based upon efficiency reports. "The women 
have proved equally faithful and more conscientious and 
painstaking than the men. They are paid the same salaries 
in everything but executive work. The comparatively few 
college women that we have employed have done conspicu- 
ously good work." 

Of the five women reporting, one is assistant secretary of 
a metropolitan trust company, promoted from the post of 
manager of the women's department; one is assistant to 
the secretary of a regional branch of the Federal Land 
Bank; one is librarian and file clerk in a large New York 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 265 

firm of private bankers ; one is financial statistician in an 
investment house; and one is custodian of the safe-deposit 
vault of a country town bank. One is a college graduate 
and a graduate of one of the best law schools ; the others 
are without college education, but express their regret at its 
lack. Salaries range from $900 to $2,700 with a median 
salary of $2,100. 

The Land Bank assistant says : "I dictate mail, open and 
distribute all mail, supervise clerks, supervise all applica- 
tions for loans, check amount of all loans approved, 
etc. . . . My employer prefers women clerks, says he gets 
more work with less friction and less talking. ... Be 
prompt. Be accurate. Don't 'guess you are right.' Take 
the time and trouble to be sure you are. ... I suppose by 
great effort a woman could become one of the officers." 
She reports no differences in the pay of men and women 
in clerical positions. 

The librarian and file clerk was previously head stenog- 
rapher for the firm, and has held her present position for 
eight years, securing it after two years of service. She 
says : "A big filing position usually comes because you know 
the special business, and have common sense and a wide 
general knowledge. Do all work particularly dependably ; 
keep an open mind ; keep educating yourself ; have an inter- 
est in your work; and don't be afraid of hard work and 
responsibiHty. I have taken special filing courses at Colum- 
bia University, and keep abreast with filing methods. . . . 
Bankers give men many more opportunities than they do 
women, but I have always been paid on an equal footing for 
what I did." 

The assistant secretary of a trust company says: *T am 
an executive officer of the company with the same rights 
and duties as the other assistant secretaries, who are all 
men. I never worked until I went to the trust company 
three years ago. In that time my salary has more than 
doubled." 

The custodian says: *T have entire charge of the safe- 
deposit vaults, and do some stenography and clerical work. 
I have worked at the teller's window, and have run the 
general ledger and the bookkeeper's ledger. My advice to 



266 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

other women in banking is to be able to mind one's own 
business and to remember that we are servants of the 
Public." 

Reports of the occupations of members of the classes 
of 191 7 and 1918 were furnished us during the summer 
of 1919 by Barnard, Mount Holyoke, Radcliffe, and Vassar 
Colleges. Nineteen graduates of 191 7 were reported as 
employed by banks or other financial institutions ; thirty- 
three graduates of 1918. Of fourteen graduates of one 
college, six were in clerical positions ; one investigate'd cus- 
tomers for the central files ; one was assistant collection 
teller in a southwestern bank, two were bond salesmen for 
a large New England banking and investment firm ; one was 
in the reference Hbrary of a New York trust company; 
another was research assistant in the foreign trade bureau 
of the same institution, where she ''helped American ex- 
porters to plan their foreign trade campaigns." One was in 
charge of the government bond work in a shipbuilding 
company. Another was director of a vacation savings club 
for working girls under the auspices of a middle- western 
trust and savings bank. Young college graduates are look- 
ing upon banking as the latest occupational adventure. 



Insurance is fundamentally the selling of financial pro- 
tection and provision for the future in return for periodic 
payments or "premiums" made by or in the name of the 
insured person or persons. To those buying insurance, 
it represents a form of thrift or saving, an investment 
at a low rate of interest, and a guaranty against sudden 
financial loss — by fire, accident, sickness, or death. An in- 
s-urance company is in one sense a great trust company, 
caring for the funds of all its policy holders and investing 
them safely. It is also a great loan agency, making loans 
to its policy holders on the basis of premiums paid. The 
organization of an insurance company is "much the same 
as that of any other corporation which has to do with the 
collecting, investing, and disbursing forms of money." But 
because its customers are many and widely scattered, and 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 267 

because its benefits are not immediate but future, and pay- 
ments are likely to lapse, the insurance company has to 
seek business far more than does the bank or investment 
house and to maintain a far larger force of outside sales- 
men or insurance agents as they are called. Moreover, 
to do business with justice and profit to both parties to 
the insurance contract, it must make elaborate calculations 
of the probabilities of various events — deaths at various 
ages and in various occupations; sickness, injury, fires, 
wrecks, accidents and damages of all sorts. This is the 
actuarial side of insurance ; the actuary is the mathematical 
expert in the insurance field. Closely allied is the insurance 
statistician, who compiles ''mortality," "morbidity," and 
other statistics. The modern life insurance medical depart- 
ment is fast becoming a public health department as well, 
employing not only medical examiners of insurance ''risks" 
but health experts who fight for the reduction of disease 
and the prolongation of life. In the same way in property 
insurance, there is a constant effort to improve construction 
and to supply efficient inspection. As a great financial in- 
stitution with the character of its investments and opera- 
tions regulated by law, the insurance company likewise em- 
ploys many financial and legal experts, efficiency engineers, 
and so on. In many cases employing hundreds of people 
in its "home office" and other hundreds in the field, it 
requires department, office, and "sales" managers. It is 
organizing personnel services of various kinds — employ- 
ment, education, restaurant, club, and recreation facilities, 
buying and savings arrangements. The character of in- 
surance work also requires advertising, information, and 
research departments. 

The best known and oldest forms of insurance are life, 
fire, and marine insurance. But there are now practically 
no risks to life or property against which insurance is not 
procurable or contemplated. The idea of social insurance 
is becoming familiar in this country; and many people 
believe that every citizen should have the protection of in- 
surance, and that inequalities of hazard should be met at 
least partly by the state. Workmen's compensation laws 
have been passed within the past decade by some twenty-six 



268 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

states. The War-Risk Insurance system for soldiers and 
sailors has brought the federal government into the insur- 
ance business on a large scale. Legislation for health insur- 
ance is being widely advocated. Old-age insurance, unem- 
ployment insurance, and maternity insurance, backed by the 
state, are still considered radical in the United States, but 
have a growing body of supporters. "Fraternal" or mutual 
benefit insurance societies have long existed. Nowadays 
many firms are taking out "group insurance" for their em- 
ployees. 

Not so long ago the term "insurance-agent" was used 
almost as contemptuously as "book-agent" or "canvasser." 
The old practice of paying commissions to any local per- 
son who wrote a little insurance as a side issue encouraged 
a class of persons to enter the business "who considered the 
interests neither of the company nor of the policy-holder, 
and very grave evils developed. The old type of agent . . . 
was simply ... a solicitor." ^ But the modern insurance 
company organizes, trains, and supervises its selling force 
according to the principles and methods used in the sell- 
ing of other essential commodities and services; so that 
insurance salesmanship is becoming more and more an 
occupation of professional standing, with a definite profes- 
sion technique and spirit and a definite group of professional 
problems calling for investigation. Companies vary in the 
organization of their agents. Some direct and supervise them 
entirely from the home office. Some appoint a general 
agent on a commission basis for a certain territory, respon- 
sible for results but with large control of the agents under 
him. Some have branch offices throughout the country in 
charge of salaried managers but with central administration 
and supervision. Insurance agents have in the past been 
paid almost exclusively on a commission basis, but as with 
bond salesmen, there is a tendency nowadays toward a 
combination of salary and commission. 

Many companies now have a women's department in 
both home and branch offices, in charge of women and 
with a corps of women agents organized to sell to women. 
Women agents, however, like women bond salesmen, are 

* Warren M. Horner. Training of a Life Insurance Agent. 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 269 

successfully writing insurance for both men and women ; 
and the time may not be far distant when separate "women's 
departments" will become obsolete. 

Apart from selling insurance as agents, women may enter 
the insurance field through the various "home" or "branch" 
office departments — actuarial, medical, legal, financial, per- 
sonnel, research, publicity. The work of an insurance 
actuary is perhaps the most difficult and technical expert 
work to be found in the commercial world, and requires 
prolonged training and special mathematical aptitude. To 
become an actuary in the full sense of the term involves 
membership in one of the actuarial societies, such as the 
Actuarial Society of America or the American Institute of 
Actuaries, which are entered through passing a series of 
difficult examinations. Some insurance companies are will- 
ing to take a small number of picked young college women 
into their actuarial departments for training, but such op- 
portunities are limited. The growth of insurance com- 
panies, industrial insurance, and pension systems has in- 
creased the demand for actuaries; but they are relatively 
few in number. The 1910 census gives 286 men and 10 
women in the profession. 

Women doctors are to some extent medical examiners 
for women applicants for insurance, usually combining this 
work with other forms of practice. Some companies, not- 
ably the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, which does 
an enormous business in insuring industrial wage earners 
and others of small income, have gone into extensive pre- 
ventive public health work. For some years this com- 
pany has had an arrangement with visiting nurse asso- 
ciations by means of which its policy-holders receive nurs- 
ing care. It issues a large number of pamphlets on matters 
of health and living to its policy-holders. For several years 
it has been cooperating with the National Tuberculosis As- 
sociation in making an intensive health study and demonstra- 
tion in Framingham, Massachusetts, of which a series of 
reports have been recently issued. That public health work 
on the part of life insurance companies is not purely philan- 
thropic by no means lessens its value; and it offers a field 
of professional and social interest to qualified women 



270 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

and providing a unique opportunity to check up results. 

The complicated fie^d of insurance law offers an op- 
portunity to women lawyers who prefer salaried office posi- 
tions to independent practice.^ Insurance companies are 
also employing women statisticians, expert accountants, 
auditors, adjusters, advertising and editorial workers, and 
workers in various personnel services. But on the whole, 
they have not turned to college women as a source of pro- 
fessional labor supply to the extent of banks and public 
utility companies. Individually, however, college women are 
going into insurance in considerable numbers ; and the com- 
panies are becoming aware of them and their possibilities. 

Professional schools of commerce and business admin- 
istration offer courses on various types of insurance ; and 
the larger and more progressive companies conduct training 
courses for agents, and hold periodic conferences. They 
are beginning to cooperate with higher institutions in in- 
tensive courses for selected workers in their service. Such 
a course was carried on in 1919-1920 at the Carnegie In- 
stitute of Technology. Associations of insurance workers 
are for the most part open to both men and women; and 
insurance women have formed associations of their own only 
when, as in Massachusetts, the men's associations do not 
admit them; or for some special purpose, as in New York, 
in order to join the Federation of Business and Professional 
Women's Clubs. Employment is as yet probably best se- 
cured through direct application. 

Our schedules give returns from two insurance com- 
panies, a life and an accident and indemnity company; 
and from eight women in the insurance field. One firm 
employs fifty-seven women in the home office, of whom three 
occupy higher clerical positions of responsibility in the re- 
newal, loan, and group insurance departments respectively. 
Eight are stenographers, and the rest routine clerks and 
typists. The other employs no women except in routine 
clerical positions. It says : "We prefer men, for reasons too 
general for analysis. They are markedly more persistent 
than the average woman. . . . The war has greatly enlarged 

*See Women in the Law. Bureau of Vocational Information. 
Bulletin Three, pp. 73-8i- 



I 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 271 

the scope, opportunity, and possibilities of women in busi- 
ness, and the demand will increase. . . . It is to be re- 
gretted that with the present demand . . . more women do 
not seem to understand or care to appreciate their respon- 
sible connection with the business undertaken by them. 
They need to develop a much more serious intent." 

Of the eight women, three are managers of women's 
departments in branch offices of large life insurance com- 
panies ; one is assistant secretary of a western farmers' 
cooperative insurance association; one is an independent 
insurance and real estate broker ; another is connected with 
a similar agency; two are private secretaries to insurance 
executives. Three are college graduates; one is a normal 
school graduate. The three salaries reported ranged in 
1919 from $1,200 to $1,800. The incomes from commis- 
sions or commissions and salary combined ranged from 
$3,800 to nearly $10,000. The managers secured employment 
as agents through direct application, and have reached their 
present positions through promotion. They supervise and 
instruct staffs of women agents, and help sell insurance, 
one of them to both men and women. Two are paid on a 
commission basis ; one receives a salary and commissions. 

A manager says : ''For those trained in salesmanship, there 
is no limit to the amount they can earn. It is commission 
work, and depends absolutely upon individual effort and 
initiative. Our company has a thorough educational course 
and educational director ; and one can graduate and receive 
a diploma. The company circularizes fifty names a week for 
each agent, and through the answers puts agents in direct 
touch with live prospects. It keeps in personal touch with 
every agent through its 'efficiency stalf .' " 

Another says : "Do not enter unless willing to work harder 
than in any other occupation. Health, backbone, and un- 
tiring energy are the first requisites." 

The real estate and insurance broker says: "I sell real 
estate, look after and manage apartment houses and busi- 
ness buildings; and sell life, fire, automobile, burglary, 
accident, and all kinds of insurance. ... I advise women 
going into this work to get a high-school or college educa- 
tion, to make plenty of friends, not a few, to get practical 



272 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

business experience, and to study their particular subject 
so that they know it." 

Of the graduates of 1917 and 1918 of Barnard, Mount 
Holyoke, RadcHffe, and Vassar, eighteen are reported as in- 
surance workers of some sort. One young woman has re- 
cently taken a two months' course, given by one of the 
largest companies. 



Public utilities include principally telephone and tele- 
graph companies, light and power companies, and street 
and steam railways. For the most part they offer non- 
competitive service to a given community, and are under the 
regulation of special laws and in some states of public 
service boards or commissions. The Interstate Commerce 
Commission is a federal board. These services affect the 
daily convenience and comfort of the public, and they em- 
ploy large numbers of people in direct contact with the 
public, so that the problems of securing, training, and super- 
vising personnel are peculiarly important. For the same 
reasons and for the reason that their bonds and stocks are 
usually sound investments, they employ many advertising 
and publicity workers. As great service and financial cor- 
porations, they require executives and financial experts of 
many kinds. They likewise require many statisticians, com- 
puters, and efficiency engineers, and are in intimate relations 
with industries manufacturing their equipment and sup- 
plies, or maintain such industries themselves. 

Our schedules give replies from a great telephone cor- 
poration and from several branches of a subsidiary com- 
pany ; also from the Women's Service Section of the United 
States Railroad Administration, now discontinued with the 
return of the roads to corporation management. Six women 
return schedules — two in telephone companies, three in rail- 
roads, one in a gas company. 

The telephone corporation employs women in executive, 
technical, and higher clerical positions in its employment, 
instruction, technical, and development work. *'For college 
women taking up instruction work in the traffic department 
there is a six months' course affording an opportunity for 



I 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 273 

learning the detail of the work necessary to perform in- 
telligently the work required of those engaged in instruc- 
tion or in the development of instruction courses and 
methods. . . . Practically all college women are doing 
work which gives abundant opportunity for initiative and 
the expression of their ideas. . . . The work itself is to 
a large extent being developed by them. . . . Generally 
speaking we do not employ men and women in comparable 
positions. During the war, however, we employed about 
fifteen college women for work which previously had been 
handled by men. . . . My impression is that college trained 
men are more stable in their employment. This is to be 
expected, as, generally speaking, women are more uncer- 
tain in their minds as to these newer lines of employment 
open to them, the relative advantages, etc. Furthermore, 
the lines of work themselves are not so fully established as 
those open to men. . . . From the economic standpoint, 
college women are more likely to be independent, and there- 
fore are more able to take the risk that may be involved 
in a change. . . . This one conclusion stands out rather 
clearly : that in established lines of work non-college trained 
women with company experience are preferable. In new 
lines of work requiring research and a greater degree of 
imagination and initiative, the college trained women excel. 
. . . Our experience has been that women who have re- 
ceived their training at coeducational institutions have done 
better in our work than those trained at other colleges. 
This seems to be due to the fact that they are able to 
elect courses closely related to business which are not 
available at most of the other colleges. It would appear 
also that conducting the work in classes with men is ad- 
vantageous if they later go into business. . . . Our opinion 
is that it is desirable for women to major in mathematics 
and economics and to take perhaps one of the exact sciences. 
It is especially advantageous to them to have training in 
exact thinking and reasoning. Economics gives a back- 
ground which is valuable for any one going into business, 
and perhaps is especially desirable for women in order that 
they may feel as much at home as possible. ... It would 
be good advice to trained women going into business to 



274 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

recognize that it is still substantially a pioneer movement, 
and that they can help themselves and those who will follow 
them by persisting in the fields which they enter, having 
patience to develop them in a satisfactory manner. ... I 
have noted a certain roving tendency among a number of 
college-trained women." 

The manager of the Women's Service Section of the 
U. S. Railway Administration, which was established in 
the summer of 1918 to look after the interests of women 
employed by railway companies, reports that her office em- 
ployed four field agents, one statistician, and two stenog- 
raphers, practically all college women. With regard to the 
relative efficiency of men and women doing similar work, 
she says: "It depends on proper training and selection. 
Women are as efficient as men after gaining the same ex- 
perience. But objection is often made that women are 
absent more frequently, are less punctual, and have less 
ambition than men. There is, unfortunately, some truth in 
this criticism. Women need training in exactness, careful 
observation, and proper impersonal point of view. Women 
on the whole take criticism of their work too personally." 
This emphasis upon the need of impersonality recurs fre- 
quently. 

Salaries reported in public utilities work ranged in 1918 
and 1919 from $1,440 to $5,000 with a median salary of 
$2,184. A college woman who is head instructor in the 
traffic department of a great telephone corporation, who 
has been a teacher and done graduate work in two uni- 
versities, and who majored in college in mathematics and 
chemistry, says : 'T do administrative work, arranging sched- 
ules, classes, instructors' hours and duties ; and have general 
oversight of the instructional work. ... I came into this 
work with the knowledge that one college-trained woman 
had made a great success, and that others like her were 
needed. The size and reputation of the company were 
sufficient guarantee of advancement if one made good. I 
should like to have a better knowledge of English and his- 
tory, and I should like to be able to use stenography and 
typewriting as tools. College men and women are employed 
and given a six months' course before they are assigned to 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 275 

regular positions. Women are employed as operators, chief 
operators, and instructors. They report to men, who hold 
all the higher positions." 

A toll-traffic chief in a southwestern branch of the sam.e 
company says : *T instruct, make studies of operating loads, 
position loads, and circuit loads ; and supervise the work of 
the department." 

A field agent for the Women's Service Section of the 
Railway Administration is a university woman with a 
year's graduate work in social research. She has been a 
teacher and a supervisor of evening schools for immigrants. 
She says : *'I make investigations into the nature of the work 
of women railway employees, their rates of pay, etc., andi 
write reports of the same. The men agents in this work 
are empowered to make adjustments; our work is purely an 
inspection and investigation service. In work of this sort, 
be sure of your ability to meet people of all kinds, to put 
up with the hardships of almost constant travel, to write 
clearly and concisely of your impressions and investiga- 
tions. Keep in touch with the leading social, political, and 
industrial movements of the times." 

A woman of twenty-eight years of age reports that she 
has rece'ntly been promoted to the position of car dis- 
tributor on a southwestern railroad. She is a high school 
graduate with some college courses, and has been a book- 
keeper, statistician, and trainmaster's clerk. She says: *T 
fill orders for all classes of equipment for an entire division. 
If women can do the work, they have the same opportunity 
as men. The important thing is to use common, everyday 
reason and to be able to master any situation." 

While this is probably an isolated case, it shows that 
executive positions in railroad transportation are not a 
closed field to women of ability and ambition. A woman 
is director of women employees of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road. The New York Central Railroad is employing some 
young college women as draftsmen. 

The four women's colleges mentioned above show twelve 
graduates of 1917 and 1918 employed by public utilities 
companies in such capacities as computers, engineering as- 
sistants, draftsmen, and assistant auditors. 



276 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Like insurance, the real estate business has an unprofes- 
sional past, and it has not so largely lived it down. In 
many respects it is still a highly competitive and even 
speculative occupation. But the growth of large real estate 
organizations; the establishment of real estate boards and 
exchanges with regulations followed by reputable firms; 
the fact that buying, selling, or renting real property are 
complicated matters in which the individual needs the serv- 
ices of experts to supply information and to render legal, 
financial, or other assistance — all tend to raise it to a pro- 
fessional level, and to develop among its leaders the group 
spirit, the continuing study of problems and techniques, and 
the regard for public interest which a profession demands. 
The essentially public character of buildings and their rela- 
tions to public welfare are recognized at least negatively 
by building codes and the inspections based upon them. 
Moreover, the housing shortage of all kinds due to the re- 
duction in building during the war and the war-time ex- 
perience in great military and industrial housing projects 
have focused attention upon the building and real estate 
expansion which is already upon us, and render it prob- 
able that it will be carried on with a greater regard than 
heretofore for sound city development and the interests 
of all groups in the population. There has never been so 
hopeful an opportunity for cooperation between those deal- 
ing with real estate as a business or profession and those 
concerned with housing and city and town planning from 
a social and civic point of view. The housing movement 
is described in Chapter VIII. 

Real estate is a form of brokerage with the real estate 
dealer or firm charging a commission for services. Where 
the company itself owns houses and land which it puts 
up for sale or rent, it is a form of merchandising. There 
is a definite "real estate market." Many real estate firms 
specialize in one kind of property, such as office buildings, 
apartment houses, factory sites, suburban residences, farm 
lands. Others specialize in some one neighborhood. Others 
do a general real estate business. Large firms have rent- 
ing, sales, mortgage and loan, legal, and other departments. 
Real estate transactions involve many legal and financial 



SPECIAL COMMERCIAL SERVICES 277 

matters connected with deeds, mortgages, loans, taxation, 
insurance. Companies or estates owning apartment houses, 
tenement houses, private houses, office buildings, employ- 
renting agents and rent collectors. They have many deal- 
ings with architects and engineers. 

It has been said that real estate requires a smaller 
amount of initial capital than any other comparable busi- 
ness. This is perhaps one reason why a good many women 
have gone into it in a modest way for themselves, and have 
sometimes built up considerable businesses, usually in resi- 
dential suburban property or in city apartments and houses. 
A number of women are apartment house agents; a few 
are apartment house superintendents or managers. A large 
firm in New York concerned with the building of model 
tenements and workingmen's houses employs women pur- 
chasing agents, rent collectors, and resident superintendents. 
A woman has been in charge of the tenement properties 
of the Trinity Corporation. The Octavia Hill Association in 
Philadelphia has for years had women rent collectors and 
other workers. New York City has women tenement- 
house and fire-prevention inspectors. 

Outside of philanthropic or semi-philanthropic enter- 
prises, there have been few college or professional women 
in the real estate field. Some women have been left property 
to manage; others have begun as clerks or stenographers 
in real estate offices ; others have found chance openings. 
In 1914 a study of opportunities for women in the real 
estate business in Boston and its suburbs was made by the 
Women's Educational and Industrial Union.^ It found 
that local real estate firms were not willing to employ women 
except as stenographers, and that to gain practical experi- 
ence in an office, a woman was obliged to .use stenography 
as an "entering wedge." While there were a number of 
college men in the real estate business, no college women 
were found. Twenty-two women real estate brokers were 
interviewed, practically all in the field. It is probable that ac- 
cess to real estate offices in Boston is now less restricted. 

As yet, real estate workers have not formulated any re- 

* Opportunities for Women in the Business of Real Estate, Vo- 
cations for the Trained Woman. Part 2 (1914). 



278 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

quirements for professional training, although a recent con- 
vention discussed the professional character of the occupa- 
tion, and urged some form of public registration for its 
practitioners. Schools of business administration devote 
some attention to this field ; and the Young Men's Christian 
Association has offered courses for young men interested 
in becoming real estate agents, rent collectors, and so on. 
Training in law, finance, advertising, engineering, archi- 
tecture, salesmanship, and psychology are all valuable. 

Only three women in real estate returned our schedules : 
the real estate and insurance broker already described; a 
woman in the managing department of a New York realty 
company; and a woman conducting a general real estate 
business of her own in a small western city. The man- 
ager is a married woman, a college graduate with two years 
of work in a law school, who entered the business because 
it was a family affair. She says : *T am a member of the 
firm, and act as agent or manager. I do renting, managing 
apartment houses, engaging help, ordering supplies, con- 
tracting for work to be done. Positions are secured through 
applying at real estate offices, advertising, and so on." 



CHAPTER XV 

[NFORMATION SERVICES : JOURNALISM, PUBLISHING, ADVER- 
TISING, PUBLICITY 

The information services dealt v^ith in this chapter, 
though distinct, have many principles, methods, and atti- 
tudes of mind in common ; and workers pass easily from 
one to the other. All of them are, in a sense, forms of 
merchandising commodities known as news, information, 
literature, through the media of print and the graphic and 
visual arts, including in these days the motion-picture. Their 
common purpose is communication; to produce changes in 
thoughts and feelings and consequently in conduct. The 
psychological principles involved are broadly those of sales- 
manship, although the powerful stimulations of bodily pres- 
ence and voice are lacking. On the other hand, the range 
of appeal is infinitely greater, and there is a greater em- 
phasis upon the effects of repetition, suggestion, and ''mar- 
ginal attention." On the mechanical side, all of them, di- 
rectly or indirectly, produce manufactured articles — news- 
papers, books, magazines, bill-boards, catalogues, posters, 
films. As industries, they employ skilled industrial workers 
and managers and experts of various kinds. 

But the professional workers discussed here are concerned 
with the collection, organization, and transmission of facts 
and ideas. They perform a "public utility" service ex- 
ceeding that rendered by railroad, telegraph and telephone, 
and power companies, and like them carry on a process of 
distribution essential to modern civilization. In a democ- 
racy, their professional obligations and professional oppor- 
tunities are second only to those of teachers. 

Although they market literature as they market stock re- 
ports, they are in no sense literary workers, and their occu- 

279 



28o WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

pations have little to do with literature proper, the creative 
interpretation of some aspect of life through the vehicle of 
language. Young literary aspirants are frequently under 
a romantic misapprehension in this respect, to their subse- 
quent disillusionment. A recent 'Vocational guidance" bul- 
letin says : ''Literary work is not a profession. 'Writing' 
is a by-product of living. . . . The life of a nurse, a doctor, 
a teacher — each of these has developed more successful 
writers than has, for instance, a desk in an editorial office. 
The college graduate who wishes to write is likely to con- 
fuse the business of publishing the writings of others with 
an apprenticeship in creative work." ^ A reporter, an 
editor, a publisher, a writer of advertisements, may also be 
a producer of literature ; but the practice of his art lies out- 
side of his professional activities. To write themselves may 
help editors and publishers to estimate the literary quality 
of writings submitted to them. But in general they are 
successful because they are shrewd and experienced judges 
of their particular publics and of the literary and other 
qualities that will appeal to them and move them in certain 
directions. 

Journalism and publishing are closely related to advertis- 
ing not only because all three make a public appeal through 
the printed word but also because the newspaper and the 
magazine are among the most important advertising media, 
and have their advertising departments as they have their 
editorial departments. Two recent books on journalism de- 
vote considerable space to the advertising side of the news- 
paper. 2 Advertising is highly profitable to a publication ; 
most magazines could not be published without it. The 
charge is not infrequently made that the policy of a news- 
paper is controlled by its leading advertisers; and a paper 
of high standing must be above reproach in this matter. 
The financial power of the advertising department is one 
of the modern dangers to the freedom of the press, even 
where there is no taint of corruption. The book is not a 

^Burges Johnson. ''Literary Work," Journalism, Advertising 
(1919)- 

'James Melvin Lee. Opportunities in the Newspaper Business 
(1919). Don C. Seitz. Training for the Newspaper Trade (1916). 



INFORMATION SERVICES 281 

particularly good medium for advertising, except of other 
publications by the firm. But it is a product which itself 
needs advertising, so that book publishers, like other manu- 
facturers, maintain departments for preparing and placing 
their advertising. 

During the war a distinction arose between ordinary ad- 
vertising and what has come to be known in a special sense 
as ''publicity," concerned with the winning of public favor 
and support for specific organizations and causes — patriotic, 
philanthropic, educational, political. War-time examples 
are the appeals to the public of the Food Administration, 
the Treasury in its Liberty Loan campaigns, the Red Cross, 
and other ''welfare" and relief organizations. After-war 
examples are the "drives" of the various colleges, the lavish 
activities of the Interchurch World Movement, the cam- 
paigns for the presidency, and the quieter and more con- 
tinuous efforts of charity organization and other benevolent 
societies dependent upon public interest. Practically all or- 
ganizations not maintained by public funds and many that 
are find it necessary to-day to have permanent pubhcity de- 
partments. In fact, two sorts of publicity have developed, 
each with its own techniques, the "drive" or "campaign" 
for a definite and limited period, with its "zones," "quotas," 
and "hundred per cent" memberships ; and the less spectacu- 
lar but not less skillful steady diffusion of information. 
There are unmistakable evidences of pubhc weariness of 
the first method ; and the day is fast approaching for a gen- 
eral investigation of the value and vaHdity of current pub- 
licity methods, and a determination of what constitutes legit- 
imate and what illegitimate publicity. There is a crying 
need for clear and fundamental ethical standards. The 
greatest danger inherent in modern pubhcity comes from 
the fact that much of it appears in the form of contributed 
articles, not in the form of paid advertisements ; and easily 
degenerates into an insidious kind of propaganda. During 
the last few years the enormous sum^s of money spent to 
shape public opinion have done more than the rigors and 
stupidities of official censorships to weaken public confi- 
dence in the independence and accuracy of the press. The 
growing use of advertising space by political parties, labor 



282 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

organizations, civic, philanthropic, and educational bodies, 
has much to commend it, since the source and terms of the 
appeals are clearly understood. Abuses of advertising have 
been, and may be, controlled by law. But "inspired articles" 
exploit the public, and breed an ultimate distrust of the 
cause advocated and of the press itself. 

On the other hand, a democratic form of government 
and the complexities of modern industrial society require 
constant dissemination of information and the full presen- 
tation of various programs and points of view. Only thus 
can there be intelligent discussion and sound social progress. 
It has become only too easy to stigmatize the opinions of 
opponents as ''propaganda" and to use the term only in 
a disparaging sense. There is a kind of publicity that is 
genuinely educational and necessary. It is based on a 
constant study of group psychology and a realization that 
people to-day suffer not so much from lack of knowledge 
as from a surplus of shifting and half-digested knowledge. 
It aims to select, organize, and present authentic informa- 
tion in such a fashion that its bearings upon individual 
conduct and public policy and welfare may become mani- 
fest. The ethical and social responsibilities of the press 
have long been recognized, if not always lived up to. It is 
coming to be seen that advertising and all forms of paid 
pubHcity must conform to similar standards. 

Closely allied to publicity are the "information" and "re- 
search" departments maintained by an increasing number 
of industrial, commercial, and social organizations, or estab- 
lished as independent bureaus supplying service. The pri- 
mary object of such departments is to collect and organize 
information needed by those conducting a business or other 
enterprise; to study its methods of production or distribu- 
tion; to keep actual customers or patrons informed of 
progress. The primary object of a publicity or advertising 
department is to reach a public as yet uninformed, who 
may become purchasers, contributors, political supporters, 
followers of new ideas and methods. An important function 
of the federal government is to serve as a central agency 
for research, information, and publicity of an educational 
character. The Departments of Agriculture, Commerce^ 



INFORMATION SERVICES 283 

and Labor, and the Bureau of Education are striking ex- 
amples. 

The two kinds of service are often rendered by the 
same organization, although the methods employed and 
the professional workers concerned are different. There 
is some danger at present that their respective objects may 
not be clearly recognized, and that so-called information 
and research services may exist to exploit the pubhc in 
one way or another. Professional workers need to look 
carefully into the standing and backing of such services 
before becoming connected with them. ^'Research" has be- 
come a fashionable term in business. But many firms are 
recognizing that the authenticity and value of the facts 
which they set forth are a matter of social obligation as 
well as an important commercial asset. 



Journalism is professional work connected with the issu- 
ing of daily or weekly papers reporting and commenting edi- 
torially upon the news of the day; publishing, the work 
connected with the issuing of magazines, periodicals, and 
books ; advertising and publicity, the spreading of informa- 
tion for specific purposes. 

In journalism, the workers are reporters, who collect 
news at the source; copy writers, who put material turned 
in into shape for publication ; feature writers, who do work 
on special subjects or for special departments, such as the 
financial, sporting, or women's pages ; and editors of various 
kinds, who direct policies, select material, and interpret 
the news in editorial articles. There are also space writers 
or free-lance journalists, who are not salaried workers 
on the staff of any one paper but sell their work at so 
much a column or so much a hundred words to various 
papers or to newspaper syndicates, especially for "feature" 
departments or for Sunday magazine sections. 

The main types of newspaper are the metropolitan and 
large city daily paper, the small city daily, and the country 
or small town weekly. Like all periodicals they are required 
by law to state their owners and publishers. They represent 
ail sorts of political, economic, and religious views; but 



284 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

their chief object and obligation are to report the news as 
fully and fairly as possible. A metropolitan daily of the 
first class ^ has editorial, news, mechanical, and business 
departments, each in charge of a chief with a staff of edi- 
tors, managers, or foremen, and with a swarm of subordi- 
nates, reporters, special writers, correspondents, solicitors, 
clerks, skilled workmen, as the department requires. The 
editorial staff usually includes the editor-in-chief, the man- 
aging editor, the city editor, who has charge of securing 
news from a radius of from twenty-five to seventy-five 
miles ; the telegraph editor, the foreign editor, the night 
editor, and various assistants. The Sunday edition of the 
paper frequently has a separate staff, and combines many 
aspects of magazine publishing with journahsm proper. In 
1918, there were some 23,000 newspapers and periodicals 
published in the United States and its insular possessions ; 
in 1914, there were 794 daily papers in large cities; 1,786 in 
small. 

By far the largest number of journalists begin as re- 
porters; and reporters are the most numerous class of 
journalistic workers. Upon them falls "the chief burden 
of the trade," and they must possess above all "a heaven- 
born quality called 'the nose for news.' " Says Mr. Seitz : 
"Under present-day workings, the writing side is the least 
of the newspaper's troubles. Re-write men and trained 
copy readers shape up the stuff. The problem is to get it. 
That is the reporter's job." This may be a hard saying 
for the college graduate and other young persons with 
a pretty talent for writing. But schools and depart- 
ments of journahsm as well as newspapers are insisting 
upon the fact that to be able to write does not of itself 
make a young man nor a young woman a journalist, desir- 
able as it is as an asset. The true reporter must have a thirst 
for experiences, however raw and trivial and inconsequent 
they may seem to be. He must seize upon the salient, and 
at the same time not warp the essential facts. He must be 
ready to live under orders, to jump from one thing to 
another as if he were catching a train, to admit no fatigue 

* See Don C. Seitz. Training for the Newspaper Trade. Chart 
of Newspaper Administration. 



INFORMATION SERVICES 285 

and no discouragement. If he is a good reporter, he will 
have gained a cross-section and panoramic view of life 
that will stand him in good stead, whether he remain in 
the profession of journaHsm or not. On the other hand, 
experience as a newspaper reporter has its disadvantages, 
reflected in what is termed the journalistic type of mind — 
the mind that sees everything as a "story," that has little 
patience with more sober details and little consecutiveness. 
To quote Mr. Seitz again : "A reporter succeeds from the 
outset. He 'makes good' or fails promptly. His is not 
the experience of the young lawyer, doctor, or business 
man, slowly picking up his load. . . . Being a reporter is 
eminently a young man's job. He is always on assign- 
ments. . . . He must ever be alert and at the command of 
the relentless 'desk.' . . . He has no hours, but must be 
ready on call. . . . He must learn to write accurately and 
to think ahead of his pen. . . . The making of valuable ac- 
quaintances is an important factor. It has led to the gradu- 
ating of many reporters into other lines of success. There 
is always a chance for promotion outside of the profession, 
if the inside fails to open up." 

Clearly the life of a ''straight reporter" is not an easy 
one for a young woman, however well qualified she may 
be; and she still suffers from certain disabilities, notably 
in the matter of acquaintance just spoken of. But to the 
right type, the difficulties act as a challenge rather than 
as a deterrent; and there is no reason why she should not 
be a reporter if she has had sound training and advice, is 
prepared for hard work, physically, mentally, and morally, 
and is not too spendthrift of her energies. On some papers 
the practice persists of giving women society, club, and 
lecture assignments, or other supposedly easy and lady-like 
work. But t^e best training is to be found on papers which 
send out reporters on the assignments for which they are 
best fitted, or for which they happen to be available. 

Reporting is essentially an apprenticeship for other po- 
sitions on a newspaper in the department for which the 
individual shows special aptitude. It also leads to work 
on magazines of various kinds, on trade journals and "house 
organs," to advertising and publicity work, and, of late 



286 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

years, to work on certain sides of the motion-picture busi- 
ness. 

Editorial positions for both men and women are far 
more Hmited in number and more difficult to obtain than 
are positions as reporters. But newspapers are on the look- 
out for reporters who show signs of possessing the "edi- 
torial sense," the ability to interpret and evaluate news and 
to present it effectively to the public. There are many 
kinds of assistantship in which they may be ''tried out." 
But most minor editorial positions on a newspaper have 
as little tO' do with literature as has reporting, and are 
concerned almost wholly with selecting, "cutting" and other- 
wise editing reporters' "stories" and other "copy" and with 
supervising assignments. Such work, however, gives a 
valuable insight into the composition and operation of a 
great newspaper. It is usually a long road to appearance 
on the editorial page, except as everything on a paper moves 
quickly; but exceptional ability is likely to win prompter 
recognition than in many other fields. It is said that tO' be 
of editorial "timber" a person must have a specialty, a 
hobby, about which he knows everything. A modern edi- 
torial worker needs a solid grounding in economics and poli- 
tics on both the theoretical and practical sides, a strong 
sense of the public obligations of the press, and a keen 
insight with respect to his particular public. 

A field of journalism to which both recent writers and 
the schools of journalism call attention is that of the coun- 
try or small town newspaper, usually a weekly. Here the 
young man or the young woman of education and intelli- 
gence with a lively interest in country people and country 
life and its problems, may learn at first hand the essentials 
of the newspaper business, may be a respected and im- 
portant member of the community, and may earn an income 
which, though moderate, will yield larger returns in com- 
fort and human satisfactions than a better income in the 
city. In journalism, as in banking, there are many advan- 
tages accruing from the all-around training furnished by 
serving an apprenticeship in a small place. ToO' many be- 
ginners look only to the overcrowded and specialized field 
of urban journalism. To buy a country newspaper of 



INFORMATION SERVICES 287 

course requires some capital, although the price is often 
low ; and it is not advisable to make such an investment 
without some newspaper experience on a salaried basis or 
at least a full course in journalism with special attention 
to country conditions. But a number of young men and 
a few young women of a high type have been investing in 
these properties with the determination to put the best of 
themselves and their education into them. Many country 
papers are down at the heels and small-minded affairs, car- 
ried on according to an outworn pattern. With the fran- 
chise and an understanding of the new movements in rural 
health, education, and living conditions, two young college 
women, let us say, might buy and run such a paper in 
a way that would be rich in returns to themselves and the 
community. There are many possibilities of cooperation 
with county farm-bureaus, schools, granges, churches, health 
authorities. Boy and Girl Scout organizations, and so on 
Both the Federal Public Health Service and the American 
Red Cross have extensive rural health programs, which a 
country newspaper could do much to further. A major 
American problem is the improvement of the rural school. 
Until about ten years ago, training in journalism was 
secured by the method of practical experience, through be- 
ginning as a "cub reporter" on some city daily, as handy- 
man or even "printer's devil" on some country weekly. 
Natural aptitude and the lure of the work for the young 
and adventurous have played a greater part in drawing peo- 
ple into journalism than college education and schools of 
journalism. Even to-day there are those who hold that 
the newspaper is the only really effective school. But ex- 
perienced journalists have long felt this to be a wasteful 
and hit or miss method, and have advocated organized 
preparation comparable to that in law or medicine, with 
properly supervised practice, holding that the public in- 
fluence of the modern newspaper is too great to be as- 
sumed without a comprehensive knowledge of its standards, 
problems, and procedures. The Pulitzer School of Journal- 
ism of Columbia University was endowed as long ago as 
1904 by a great New York editor and publisher who wrote 
of it : "In all my planning the chief end I had in view was 



288 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

the welfare of the Republic." The Missouri Press Asso- 
ciation had long urged the establishment of the University 
of Missouri School of Journalism, which Vv^as opened in 
1908, and was the first fully organized school. New York 
University, the University of Washington, the University 
of Wisconsin, and the University of Indiana also have im- 
portant schools or departments ; and many other universi- 
ties and colleges give instruction in journaHsm of a pre- 
professional or professional character. Some of the state 
institutions have special courses in agricultural journalism 
or in the country weekly, and offer short courses and "news- 
paper weeks" to the journalists of the state, quite as the 
agricultural colleges do to the farmers. They issue valu- 
able bulletins on journaHstic topics.^ Academic training in 
journalism ranges from single elective courses in newspaper 
writing to four-year undergraduate courses and provisions 
for graduate work. In most schools of journaHsm, the first 
two years are devoted to academic work of a cultural char- 
acter; the last two years to technical courses and to ad- 
vanced training in economics, politics, history, sociology, and 
literature. The Pulitzer School of Journalism offers a 
course covering the last two years of the undergraduate 
curriculum, and admits graduates of other colleges to its 
second year, if they have had work equivalent to that of 
the first. It provides three traveling foreign scholarships 
of the value of $1,500 each to its graduates. 

Modern journalism makes so many demands upon its 
practitioners that it is difficult to suggest undergraduate 
courses of special pre-professional value. In addition to 
those just mentioned, psychology in its various appHcations 
is of fundamental importance, as is also anthropology for 
the light which it throws on racial "folkways." Enough 
experimental science should be taken to make clear its rela- 
tions to modern problems and techniques and to give re- 
spect for scientific methods and rigorous standards of fact 
and truth. At the University of California a faculty "com- 
mittee on journalistic studies" representing several depart- 

* See James Melvin Lee. Instruction in Journalism. U. S. Bu- 
reau of Education. 1918. Bulletin No. 21. Burges Johnson. "Lit- 
erary Work" Journalism, Advertising (1919). 



INFORMATION SERVICES 289 

ments was established in 191 9 to advise students looking 
forward to journalism as a career and to offer certain joint 
courses. 

Positions on newspapers are largely secured through rec- 
ommendation or direct application with specimens of work. 
A young woman may often sell some of her work to a 
** feature" department before receiving a regular appoint- 
ment to the staff. Helpful suggestions and advice from 
prominent journalists are given in a recent Oberlin College 
bulletin.^ 

Salaries in reportorial work are low to begin with; but 
advancement comes quickly, if at all. The initial salary 
must be looked upon as an apprentice wage, giving the op- 
portunity for invaluable practical training. But if it is 
below the current cost of living, the newspaper, on its 
part, should recognize its obligation to furnish instruction, 
at least to the extent of "routing" the beginner through 
the various departments. In the rush of newspaper work, 
novices are usually left to sink or swim. Professor James 
Melvin Lee gives the following report on salaries within 
his personal knowledge on papers outside the metropolitan 
districts. They were presumably received in 1918 by stu- 
dents of schools of journalism. "In the case of one hun- 
dred reporters who recently secured positions . . . ten were 
hired at a salary of $18 per week; thirty-eight at $20; 
twenty-six at $25; twenty-two at $30; and four at $35. . . . 
In the case of a dozen city editors who were hired during 
the same period, two secured $30; four $35 ; four $40; and 
two about $50 a week. The last figure quoted is about the 
average weekly salary of the managing editor of the daily 
published outside the larger cities. Such a managing edi- 
tor often has charge of the editorial page in addition to 
his other duties." 

During 1919 "newspaper writers' unions" affiliated with 
the American Federation of Labor were formed in various 
cities. The New Republic ^ states that such a union in Bos- 
ton increased the average newspaper salary from $21 a 

* Vocational Advice for College Students (1918). See also Vocfl' 
tions for Business and Professional Women (1919). 
'August 6, 1919. 



290 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

week to a minimum of $38 for reporters and $45 for desk 
men. Four city editors are members. In Rochester the 
union demanded $50 a week for experienced reporters. 
In New Haven, where demands were not granted, the news- 
paper men estabHshed a cooperative daily. Seattle has for 
some time had a daily, the Union Record, backed by organ- 
ized labor. Papers under cooperative and labor auspices 
are likely to increase in number. 

Five women filling our schedules in 191 8 and employed 
by one middle-western and four eastern newspapers as re- 
porters, feature writers, and sub-editors received salaries 
ranging from $15 to $35 a week, from $790 to $1,820 a year, 
with a median salary of f 25 a week or $1,300 a year. One 
receiving $25 had begun at $10 eighteen months before ; an- 
other with considerable previous experience had begun at 
$25 seventeen months before. Only one is a college gradu- 
ate; the others are graduates of high or private schools. 
One has taken short courses in journalism and advertising 
at a neighboring university ; two have had courses at busi- 
ness schools. Two have been on other papers; one ^as 
taught; one has been a secretary; one a hospital social 
worker; one a librarian and traveling salesman. None of 
them is over thirty-five. Their work includes regular re- 
porting with special reference to community activities in 
which women are concerned ; special articles on women and 
children; theater assignments; in one case writing the en- 
tire women's page; in the case of the sub-editor, writing 
special signed articles. 

Advice and comments are as follows: "Don't gossip. 
Don't allow yourself to grow stale. I should have mas- 
tered more modern languages, and should have studied 
government and economics." 

*Tt is a wonderful training for anyone. I should advise 
determination, courage, a good grasp of 'talking English,' 
a knowledge of typewriting sufficient to do 'copy' fairly 
quickly. College education or shorthand are not necessary. 
Get out before you become hardened or cynical. Use it as 
a road to something better." 

"If I had known that I was going to do newspaper work, 
I should have taken more intensive English training, and 



INFORMATION SERVICES 291 

read all that could have been crammed in — novels, poetry, 
history, everything written in books." 

"I do not advise newspaper work for the average woman. 
The work is hard, and the hours are not steady but leave 
you no leisure that you can depend on. There are about 
twenty men on this paper doing work comparable to mine. 
Their average salary is not so high. The really experi- 
enced newswriter, if a woman, is rather better paid than 
a man. On this paper men and women are frequently paid 
a bonus for an especially original idea." 

"Do not enter the work unless you have a 'nose for news' 
and love it. Work at knowing people, and be with the pub- 
lic as much as possible. In newspaper work, if one makes 
good, there is practically nO' sum which men and women 
alike cannot earn by working. ... I am the only woman 
on the reportorial staff with eight men, and I require no 
extras of any kind." 

"The only method that I know of to secure a position 
on a paper is to ask for it." 

"Show the sort of work you can do by bringing in a good 
story on some up to the minute activity. If an editor is 
familiar with the sort of work a writer does on some other 
paper, it helps. Keep after him ! !" 



Probably more women, especially among college gradu- 
ates, are attracted to the magazine field than to the field of 
newspaper work proper. Some of therri' begin as journalists, 
and come over into magazine work through feature writing 
or through contributions to magazines. Others, however, 
enter magazine work directly. There is a difference of 
opinion as to the value of previous newspaper experience. 
As many women go intO' advertising, publicity, and motion- 
picture work from the newspaper as go into magazine work. 

The range of magazines and periodicals of various kinds 
is enormous and constantly growing, from the weeklies con- 
taining summaries of the news and comments upon it, thus 
touching the newspaper, through the "journals of opin- 
ion," the "literary" and "popular" monthHes, the "women's" 
and "household" magazines, the garden magazines, to 



292 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

periodicals for every group and occupation, — agricultural 
and farm, motion-picture, musical, art, scientific, profes- 
sional, technical, and trade. The number and importance 
of trade journals are little recognized; but they run into 
the hundreds, and have a wide circulation. Over three hun- 
dred, including dailies, weeklies, and monthlies, are pub- 
lished in New York City alone. Some of them, like Print- 
er/ Ink, the Iron Age, Women's Wear, the Publishers^ 
Weekly, are nationally influential. These publications pay 
good salaries, and are on the lookout for people who com- 
bine a good general education, newspaper or magazine ex- 
perience, and at least a preliminary knowledge of the par- 
ticular industry or trade concerned. More intimate 
knowledge can be acquired in service, possibly through work 
as an operative, or in some other department of the busi- 
ness. Trade journals often require statisticians and other 
technical workers. 

Another type of trade periodical is known as a "house 
organ," published by an individual firm or corporation for 
its employees and sometimes with their help, to give all 
members of the personnel information regarding the or- 
ganization as a whole and to develop general interest, good 
feeling, and ''morale. " ^ "House organs" have increased 
rapidly in number during the past few years, and are prop- 
erly part of the personnel work of an organization. Some 
of the most successful have been edited by women. Where 
they are wholly in the hands of the management, they are 
not infrequently used as a means of influencing the minds 
of the workers with regard to political, economic, and so- 
cial questions. Of late, some of them have contained ex- 
ceedingly obvious reactionary propaganda. In taking a 
position on either a trade journal or a house organ, a pro- 
fessional woman should inform herself with regard to 
the views and policies of the industry or the firm. There 
is httle satisfaction in attempting journalistic or editorial 
work on a publication with which one is fundamentally out 
of sympathy. 

The largest number of women editors and editorial 
writers are employed on the great "women's magazines," 

^ See Robert E. Ramsey. Effective House Organs (1920). 



INFORMATION SERVICES 293 

some of which have millions of subscribers, and carry an 
enormous amount of advertising. In a few cases, the edi- 
tors in chief are women. While it has been the fashion 
to smile at these magazines, and while they still contain 
much that is trivial, and also tend to set up false standards 
of living, they are becoming increasingly aware of certain 
public questions with which women are closely concerned, 
and are carrying on campaigns of educational propaganda 
in connection with public health, child-welfare, education, 
food, occupations, and so on. They afford a great popular 
medium for the dissemination of these and other construc- 
tive ideas. It would be interesting to see what would happen 
to their advertising if they undertook to push the coopera- 
tive movement, for instance. They often employ women 
professional experts to deal with the matters which they 
are actively furthering, and commonly pay salaries well 
above the average. 

Eleven women on magazines and periodicals who filled 
our schedules in 1918 received salaries ranging from $1,040 
to $10,000, with a median salary of about $2,000. The next 
to the highest salary was only $2,600. They include the edi- 
tor in chief of a popular women's magazine, the editors of 
a denominational religious monthly and a ''naval monthly," 
the office editor of a well-known general weekly, the asso- 
ciate editor of a journal of electricity, the assistant editor 
of a tax association monthly, the editor of a ''women in 
business" department of an "efficiency" magazine; the edi- 
tor of a "girls' page" in a leading magazine for young 
people. One woman is editor and publication manager 
of a technical journal of the popular type ; another is 
owner and editor of a monthly publication for teachers ; 
another is circulation manager of a leading weekly devoted 
to social and civic betterment. Eight of these women are 
college graduates, four of eastern and four of western in- 
stitutions. Five have left college since 1912. One has taken 
courses in the school of journalism of a western state uni- 
versity; two have been on newspapers, one having been 
city editor for two years ; four have been promoted from 
subordinate positions on the same magazine ; one has been 
a trained librarian and organizer of business libraries; one 



294 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

a trained secretary and statistician ; one a social and indus- 
trial investigator. 

The editorial work of these women involves selecting and 
editing articles, providing illustrations, planning the make- 
up of each issue and the "lay-out" of pages, pasting the 
"dummy" ; sometimes selecting the cover, proof-reading, 
writing special articles and news notes. In some cases, they 
also have charge of advertising or manufacturing, attend- 
ing to all matters of buying paper, printing, and so forth. 
The circulation manager is in the business department. 

An editor of long experience says : "Learn to do some 
special thing well. Get a definite idea of what you can 
offer that will be of value to the concern. Most applicants, 
especially college women, merely state that they 'want to 
work on a magazine,' but have nothing special to offer." 

A successful young college woman says : "Less high- 
school methods in freshman courses in college would have 
been desirable and more stimulus to broaden my interests ; 
throughout college a definite emphasis of the connection be- 
tween college work and the activities of the world outside. 
... I took the place of a man and at the same salary. . . . 
Sometimes one can get on the editorial staff of a magazine 
by writing articles for it. Usually, I think, the thing to do 
is to go and ask for a job, bringing introductions and recom- 
mendations if possible and presenting one's own qualifi- 
cations." 

Another who is associate editor of a technical journal 
says : "The ability to understand and form judgments on 
scientific subjects is of more use than actual technical train- 
ing. College editorial work is of use in securing a po- 
sition, although this side can be easily picked up. 'Loyalty 
to the paper' and enthusiasm in the work are most important 
in the eyes of the employer. Stenography and typewriting 
are of no value in this work. My association with my 
father, who is an engineer, and work on engineering books 
written by him have been most helpful ; also my interest in 
mathematics, science, philosophy, economics, and English, 
and acquaintance with employers and women through vo- 
cational work done for the Association of Collegiate 
Alumnae. . . . On a technical journal a woman is not worth 



INFORMATION SERVICES 295 

quite so much as a man (other things being equal) because 
she cannot join technical societies and keep in touch with 
people and happenings. Part of the 'good will' of the busi- 
ness is dependent upon the editor being good friends with 
everybody .... It would take years of acquiring acquaint- 
anceship in technical circles before a woman could handle 
such a journal independently." 

A woman who has been a superintendent of city and 
state training schools for teachers and for five years an 
elected county superintendent of schools in the Southwest, 
owns and edits a teachers' journal, and also runs a ranch. 
She says : *T edit all material contributed, write book 
reviews, solicit and arrange all advertising. I find my 
broad experience in educational work and in community 
work, city and rural, most helpful." 



Opportunities for women in the book publishing field are 
more limited than in connection with either newspapers 
or magazines. This is partly because publishing houses 
are themselves relatively few in number, partly because until 
recently, few women have been regularly connected with 
them except as secretaries to executives or routine clerks and 
stenographers. Some of the best-known firms are old and 
conservative; in practically all of them men compose the 
firm and direct its poHcies. The National Board of Young 
Women's Christian Associations has its Woman's Press, and 
a bookshop in New York run by women has done a small 
amount of publishing. In the larger publishing houses 
within the past few years, a number of young college women 
have found a foothold, not through stenography and typing, 
but as junior assistants on the same basis as young college 
men. Two of them are now heads of children's depart- 
ments in long established and important firms. Other 
women hold responsible posts in both the editorial and ad- 
vertising departments. The publishing business, like others, 
is beginning to establish * 'research" departments, which an- 
alyze sales, study population distribution and interests, and 
in other ways seek to apply the principles of scientific man- 
agement and cost accounting to an industry in which the 



296 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

margin of profits is at best small and uncertain.^ It offers 
therefore some opportunities to women with training along 
these lines. It is undertaking more systematic advertising.^ 

For the young woman who has cast aside the fond belief 
that to secure a position with a publishing house means 
entering upon a literary career, but who has a keen in- 
terest in the making and marketing of books as well as 
in their contents and a lively curiosity about the reading 
habits of the public, there are at present genuine oppor- 
tunities in the book publishing field, although she will have 
to make them to a large extent. She must expect to begin 
at the bottom, but if she shows a capacity for hard and 
intelligent work, an unwillingness to receive special favors, 
and a fresh and resourceful mind, promotion will not be 
slow. With women forming so large a portion of the read- 
ing public, there is a real chance to help toward a better 
understanding of the reading requirements of different 
groups of women. It is too often assumed that they are 
predominantly a leisure and ''consuming" element in the 
population. Unless she is of the secretarial type of mind, 
she need no longer use that mode of access to the occupa- 
tion. And she should clearly realize that nobody begins as 
a "reader" or book reviewer. These kinds of work are usu- 
ally done on a "piecfe-work" basis by experienced profes- 
sional persons. They are among the crumbs that commonly 
fall to college professors, or are entrusted to expert con- 
sultants or members of the firm. Women might well go 
more largely into the selling end of the book business, which 
is invaluable as training for its other aspects. As a business, 
its surroundings and associations are unusually agreeable, 
its subject-matter and problems of varied and challenging 
human significance. 

The main divisions of book-publishing are general pub- 
lishing, educational or text-book publishing, religious pub- 
lishing, and technical publishing. Some firms have all these 
departments. Within these fields publishers specialize in 

* See George P. Brett. Making of Many Books. Atlantic 
Monthly, October, 1920. 

'See A. Edward Newton. A Slogan for Booksellers in the same 
issue. 



INFORMATION SERVICES 297 

many ways, so that one comes to know the general character 
of books bearing certain imprints. So far, there has been 
no special form of training for publishing-house work other 
than a liberal education and actual experience in service. 
But it seems high time for publishers to put their heads to- 
gether and devise some sort of cooperative cotu'ses with 
neighboring universities rather than tO' leave the equipment 
of their personnel on the old-fashioned basis of "picking 
up a trade." Employment, save as secretaries, is still most 
frequently secured through direct application backed by in- 
troductions and recommendations. 

Ten publishers filled our schedules in 1919, including one 
general book publisher, one general magazine publisher, one 
publisher of business and educational journals, one of in- 
dexes, catalogues, and handbooks, two publishers of edu- 
cational books, two of religious books, twO' of trade books 
and periodicals. Three employed no women except in rou- 
tine clerical work; four employed them as office managers, 
accountants, and secretaries to executives ; one educational 
publisher employed them as salesmen, and had a woman 
assistant manager of the foreign department; a trade pub- 
lisher had a woman assistant salesmanager ; three employed 
them as proofreaders ; one employed only women as in- 
dexers and cataloguers ; two mention editors. Some of the 
largest and oldest publishing houses made no reply. The 
comments range from paternal solicitude for women forced 
to leave their proper place, the home, to an avowal of the 
belief that political equality will bring an approach to eco- 
nomic equality between men and women. (Opinions differ 
widely as to the persistence and efficiency of women in the 
publishing business. "Men are much more persistent. 
Women get married and leave, or leave anyhow." 

"Our impression is that women are fully as efficient and 
persistent as men." 

"In regard to the relative efficiency of men and women 
doing similar work, we have reached the conclusion that it 
is 60-40 in favor of men." (This is written over an origi- 
nal 50-50!) 

A trade publisher says that he wants college women 
"every time." An educational publisher says that univer- 



298 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

sity work fits better for business than brief professional or 
technical courses. 

Many publishers are also retail booksellers, maintaining 
shops for the purchase of their own publications and those 
of other firms. This aUied field of retail bookselling is an 
attractive and promising one for women, especially if they 
have had previous experience in a publishing house, and 
thus know something of the book trade from the inside. 
Women are successful managers of large book departments 
in department stores. One in Chicago is particularly well 
known. The development of neighborhood and specialty 
bookshops — drama, poetry, children's, and so on — provides 
an opportunity that women are seizing. If business sense 
and professional spirit are brought to such enterprises, no 
great amount of capital is needed. Examples are the Gar- 
denside Bookshop in Boston, the Wayfarers' Bookshop in 
Washington, the Priscilla Guthrie Bookshop in Pittsburgh, 
the Sunwise Turn in New York. The proprietors of the 
latter establishment have been very successful in the heart 
of the hotel and terminal district, and are enthusiastic over 
the possibilities of the neighborhood bookshop as a place 
where people may drop in to read as well as to buy, and 
where an expert advisory book service may be given, such 
as cannot be supplied by a single publisher or by large 
firms. They would like to see women opening such book- 
shops throughout the country. There is a chance for in- 
tensive study of a neighborhood's reading needs ; and the 
small bookshop may come to be one of the substitutes for 
the saloon! On the other hand, the idea runs contrary to 
the modern spirit of consolidation, and the pitfalls that 
beset the retail book dealer are many.^ The Bookshop for 
Boys and Girls of the Women's Educational and Industrial 
Union has been a delightful pioneer enterprise, which has 
a follower in the Children's Bookshop in New York. Talks 
to parents and others on reading for and about children 
and children's story-hours are among the activities of these 
establishments. During the summer of 1920 the Bookshop 
for Boys and Girls sent a motor "book caravan" on an an- 

*See William H. Arnold. The Welfare of the Bookstore. At- 
lantic Monthly. August, 1919. 



INFORMATION SERVICES 299 

nounced schedule through the New England summer-resort 
country.^ A Woman's National Book Association has re- 
cently been organized, open to all women engaged in mak- 
ing, selling, or creating a book.^ A few women of experi- 
ence have established themselves as readers and as au- 
thors' agents, reading, criticizing, and placing manuscripts 
with publishers. Others specialize in placing plays, and 
are known as play brokers. 



The motion-picture business also has its agents ; and in- 
dividual firms are employing an increasing number of edu- 
cated women in work allied to journalism and advertising. 
Young college won?en commonly begin as synopsis writers, 
making abstracts of stories or books suitable for filming. 
This is apprentice work, and does not pay highly. But 
it gives an insight into the requirements of a good motion- 
picture. A few young women who' have shown aptitude 
have become "continuity writers," which means preparing 
the script from which the picture is actually taken, with 
detailed instructions for every stage and aspect. This 
means familiarity with the production studio. Women are 
also acting as assistants to the manager of the editorial de- 
partment, and are "title-writers" and reviewers of films. 
Much title-writing, however, is done by the staff as a group. 
There is a difference of opinion as to whether authors can 
satisfactorily cooperate in the making of scenarios ^ from 
their own writings. Most producers have relegated them 
to the background, but a few are seeking their active aid, 
even in continuity writing. There is a demand for sce- 
narios of more literary quality than is usually found at 
present; but the road to becoming a successful writer of 
scenarios is long and uncertain. Three universities, Har- 

*Mary Frank. Caravaning with Books. The Bookman, Feb- 
ruary, 1 92 1. 

'It is cooperating (1921) with the New York Booksellers' League 
in a plan for courses for workers in bookselling to be given by 
New York University and the New York Public Library. 

' See John Emerson and Anita Loos. How to Write Photo- 
plays (1920), 



300 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

vard, Columbia/ and the University of Pennsylvania, offer 
courses in scenario and other motion-picture writing. A 
few women have been assistant producers ; fewer, producers. 

The rise of the motion-picture business has been spec- 
tacular. It is estimated that it is now the fourth 
industry in the United States. It is emerging from its 
'*wild-cat" stage and its practically exclusive control by 
theatrical producers. Its significance as a medium of com- 
munication as well as of recreation and its tremendous social 
appeal both for good and ill compel the serious attention of 
professional workers. The efficacy of the motion-picture 
as a medium of information to people of varied social 
groups and speaking different languages was abundantly 
shown during the war. There is coming to be a clear dis- 
tinction between ''commercial" or theatrical films, shown in 
motion-picture houses, and educational and informational 
films supplied directly to schools, clubs, churches, factories, 
labor unions, prisons and reformatories, and so on, by such 
agencies as the Community Motion Picture Bureau and 
the Educational Film Corporation. A new Labor Film 
Service has been organized. As a result of overseas ex- 
perience in war-time, motion-picture "camionettes" are be- 
ing sent into country districts to provide both entertainment 
and instruction, reinforcing the work of the States' Re- 
lations and Public Health Services, the American Red Cross, 
and other agencies active in rural betterment. 

In addition to editorial, production, advertising, and cir- 
culating departments, all calling for expert workers of vari- 
ous kinds, motion-picture companies employ research work- 
ers in connection with settings, costumes, and the like, on 
a salaried or piece-work basis. Competition for positions 
is keen; and professional women are only beginning to ap- 
pear in the work. Salaries for those who succeed at-e high. 
Title-writers are said to receive from $ioo to $250 a week; 
continuity writers about $750 a month. An occupation de- 
veloping with such rapidity and capable of so many appli- 
cations offers much that is of interest to the professionally- 
minded woman, and may provide her with permanent satis- 
factions. (See Chapter XVI.) 

*See Frances Taylor Patterson. Cinema Craftsmanship. (1920.) 



INFORMATION SERVICES 301 

Advertising is an activity essential to modern methods of 
selling commodities and services, and so far as can be seen 
would be necessary under any system of large-scale pro- 
duction and distribution. It has emerged from a **patent- 
medicine" past, and is reaching the point where every ad- 
vertisement shall be a "specification of the character and 
a guaranty of the quality" of what is sold. Some of the 
great advertising companies refuse to sign contracts until 
they have made a careful investigation of the nature and 
usefulness of the product to be advertised. They stand 
back of their facts, and are beginning to develop a sense 
of social responsibility about "creating a market" for things 
that are superfluous or meretricious. But like other types 
of commercial enterprise, advertising is as yet only imper- 
fectly professionalized in the full sense ; and women going 
into it need to be sure that they can do so without doing 
violence to their social and ethical standards. It is highly 
important to know beforehand the attitude of the company 
with which they are identifying themselves. On the other 
hand, it is estimated that eighty-five per cent of retail buy- 
ing is in the hands of women; and professional women in 
advertising have an opportunity to study this consuming 
public more carefully than has yet been done and to di- 
rect it more wisely. Many firms consider that it is essential 
to employ women in connection with the advertising of 
goods appealing particularly to women ; but women are not 
Hmiting themselves to work with women. 

The two main types of advertising are local advertising, 
which is largely retail, and national advertising, which is 
largely by the manufacturer, producer, or wholesale dis- 
tributer. Department store advertising is an example of 
the first type; industrial advertising of special makes or 
brands of articles is the great example of the second type. 
Financial advertising, theatrical and motion-picture adver- 
tising, and book advertising partake of the nature of both. 
Retail or local advertisers practically always have their own 
advertising departments ; national advertisers are more likely 
to employ advertising firms or agencies ; many business or- 
ganizations make use of both. The media of advertising 
are many. The accepted carriers are the newspaper, the 



302 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

magazine, the billboard or wall sign, the booklet or circular, 
the advertising letter. More recent are the electric sign 
and the motion-picture. Advertising to reach manufac- 
turers and large distributers is found chiefly in the journals 
of various trades and industries. The automobile, both the 
pleasure car and the truck, has increased the importance of 
outdoor display advertising. Much of it is abhorrent to 
the lover of rural or urban beauty ; and a problem in civic 
art is that of improving the aesthetic character of the bill- 
board and the permanent sign. Some of the war-time ex- 
amples give encouragement. 

Although many people have gone into advertising from 
the newspaper or magazine field, the actual writing of ad- 
vertising copy is only one part — and perhaps not the most 
important part — of the modern business of advertising. 
Especially in national advertising, campaigns and programs 
are based upon the most careful antecedent investigation 
of the nature of the article to be advertised, the amount 
of competition to be met in selling it, the distributions of 
population, the special groups to be appealed to, the best 
modes of approaching them, the costs and profits. All these 
matters have been reduced to a scientific basis, expressed in 
terms of statistics, graphs and charts. The workers re- 
quired must be trained in the best methods of commercial 
research, applied to the advertising field. They need large- 
mindedness and imagination as well as technical training. 
There is a chance for an originality which is not sensational 
nor eccentric. Workers are prone to follow certain success- 
ful methods in a sheeplike way ; and even now the psychol- 
ogy of different buying publics is imperfectly understood. 

Advertising workers of professional character are of four 
main types : ( i ) Research workers, investigators, statisti- 
cians, etc. (2) Managers and agents; (3) Copy-writers, 
designers, and illustrators. (4) Solicitors, attached to pub- 
lications, who sell space to firms wishing to advertise. There 
are also "lay-out" workers, who plan the arrangement of 
advertising matter for magazines, newspapers, bill-boards, 
and so on; and space-buyers, who must know the adver- 
tising value of different publications and their space rates. 
Some experienced women have become advertising con- 



INFORMATION SERVICES 303 

sultants, preparing trade catalogues, circulars, and other 
matter/ 

The research aspect of , advertising is the most recently 
developed, and is probably the most directly accessible and 
the most rewarding to professional vi^omen v^ith training 
in economics, business administration, psychology, or some 
special field closely related to the commodities advertised, 
such as foods or textiles. Managerial positions are reached 
through securing a thorough knowledge of the business by 
serving in one or other of the subordinate positions and 
studying it in all its ramifications. Too much cannot be 
known of the product or products advertised. The adver- 
tisements of the organization and of others should be criti- 
cally compared; trade journals should be assiduously read. 
Some of the leading women advertising managers have 
reached their present positions through becoming connected 
with the company as stenographers; but this is no longer 
a necessary nor in most cases a desirable approach. Some 
firms are taking on young college women as apprentices, 
and giving them experience on different sides of the busi- 
ness. It is sometimes well to begin with a small company or 
agency in order to secure this '"all-around" training, but 
on the whole, the larger firms have the better organization 
and procedures. 

Many newspaper women have gone into advertising, and 
their training in compression and in writing salient head- 
lines has been of value. But there are certain ingrained 
newspaper habits which work against success in advertising. 
The advertisement is far less ephemeral than the news- 
paper paragraph; it appeals to a specific group within the 
vague total known as "the public" ; its efficacy is constantly 
checked by the correlations of expenditures for advertising 
and receipts from sales ; it defeats its own end if it is in- 
correct or misleading. The rough and slapdash methods 
of the reporter will not do. Experience in actual salesman- 
ship either behind the counter or "on the road" is consid- 
ered of even greater value as training for the advertising 
business ; and beginners are often advised to serve an actual 

* See Eleanor Gilbert. The Ambitious Woman in Business (1916), 
Chapter 13. Advertising and the Woman Who Can Write. 



304 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

apprenticesftip as salesmen. They should at least be fa- 
miliar with the modern psychology of salesmanship an<i 
advertising, as set forth in such books as those of Dr. 
Walter Dill Scott. It is coming to be recognized also 
that more attention should be paid to the psychology 
and ethics of buying, the attitude of the actual purchaser 
and consumer. 

Advertising companies and departments usually maintain 
a small art force; but much of the actual illustrating and 
designing is done on a piece-work basis by "free-lance" 
workers. It is important, however, for all advertising work- 
ers, especially copy writers and "lay-out" workers, to un- 
derstand the principles of design and spatial composition 
and, if possible, to have some knowledge of the psychologi- 
cal principles of space and color vision, the effect of dif- 
ferent forms and colors at varying distances and varying 
speeds.^ To study advertisements in street-cars, for in- 
stance, is to realize the deplorable lack of such knowledge. 
Almost equally important is a practical knowledge of print- 
ing and reproduction processes, styles of type, and so on. To 
secure this, it is often desirable to attend evening classes 
in printing and typography or even one of the "printers' 
schools," or to serve a while at the printers' trade. 

There are no schools of advertising of university grade, 
but most schools of commerce and business administration 
give courses in the subject, as do many departments of 
psychology. At least one great national advertising com- 
pany has its own training course, and has recently arranged 
for the cooperation of a leading university. Short courses 
for workers are given by extension departments, the Young 
Men's Christian Associations, and business institutes. 
Closely allied training is to be found in bureaus or depart- 
ments of wholesale and retail salesmanship (see p. 249). 
Positions are secured through direct application, or through 
advertisement in such trade journals as Printers' Ink and 
Advertising and Selling, Advice as to firms hospitable to 
the employment of women may be secured from bureaus 
of occupations or the Bureau of Vocational Information in 

*See E. Sampson. Advertise! (1918). Frank Parsons. Princi- 
ples of Advertising Arrangement (1912). 



INFORMATION SERVICES 305 

New York. Leagues and clubs of advertising women exist 
in eleven states; and women are admitted to some of the 
national advertising associations. 

Salaries in advertising range from $20 a week for be- 
ginners of good education who are learning the business 
to from $25 to $75 a week for copy writers; from $i,5CX) or 
$1,800 to $3,000 or $4,000 for assistant managers ; from 
$4,000 to $10,000 or more for managers. Only a few women 
have reached the highest managerial salaries. Research 
workers receive from $1,500 for subordinates to $5,000 or 
more for directors of departments.^ Six women filling our 
schedules in 1918 and 1919 reported salaries ranging only 
from $1,020 to $2,400 with a median salary of $1,410. Five 
are college graduates, four of recent classes. Three are 
assistant advertising managers in department stores in New 
England, the south, and California; two are in advertising 
agencies, one an apprentice and one the secretary-treasurer 
of the company; and one is a copy writer and assistant 
to the advertising manager of a fuel gas company. Five 
graduates of 1917 and 1918 of an eastern college are in the 
advertising departments of department stores, one as man- 
ager, and in the research departments of a fashion and 
pattern company, of an associated drygoods corporation, 
and the commercial research division of a great popular 
publishing company carrying much advertising. 

The graduate of a western university says: "Our store 
is progressive. Modern methods are continually being in- 
stalled. The business is growing. Its department heads 
are mostly young men and women, and it is beginning to 
employ college trained people. In my general education, 
my courses in Enghsh, journalism, and psychology have 
been most helpful. Work on a newspaper gave me excellent 
training as an advertising writer. My knowledge of type 
and of how to write headlines has been most useful. There 

* Bureau of Vocational Information, Vocations for Business and 
Professional Women; also Bulletin No. 5. Positions of Responsi- 
bility in Depcrtment Store Organizations (1921) ; also an unpub- 
lished study made in 1919-1920 by the Employment Department of 
the New York City Branch of the Y. W. C. A. of 39 advertising 
agencies and 16 advertising departments of companies and corpora- 
tions in the New York area. 



3o6 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

are no salary differences here so far as sex is concerned. 
Every employee comes up for a salary increase every six 
months. Women considering advertising should be very 
sure that they wish to, enter the profession, and be willing 
to work long hours and hard." 

The assistant in a fuel gas company says: "There is a 
splendid field for keen, alert, well-educated women in the 
advertising business in almost any branch, but they have 
to work inside and outside the office. ... I was given a 
chance to 'make good' and to develop the feminine view- 
point in gas-appliance advertising. I have found useful in 
my professional training detail work in printing, etc. I 
sometimes take on extra advertising work, such as copy or 
house organs." 



The distinctions between commercial advertising and pub- 
licity have already been set forth. It took the war to make 
them so explicit that separate publicity organizations and 
workers have appeared. Publicity has to do with the win- 
ning of active public attention to a cause, institution, or- 
ganization, or movement, which will express itself in con- 
tributions, membership, volunteer aid, or other forms of 
carrying out the program suggested. Private organizations 
usually seek funds either directly or indirectly, or their pub- 
licity may be primarily educational, looking toward the shap- 
ing of public opinion in certain directions, such as publicity 
campaigns for improved schools, public health, or more en- 
lightened labor legislation. Political organizations aim at 
a publicity that will win votes, government departments, 
such as the United States Department of Agriculture, at 
widespread diffusion of useful information and improve- 
ment of specific conditions. Enormous amounts of money 
have been spent on publicity of late years. Labor organi- 
zations have learned the lesson, and are maintaining such 
elaborate publicity organizations as that of the Plumb Plan 
League in Washington. Publicity organizations are spe- 
cializing in college ''drives," in civic activities of chambers 
of commerce, in philanthropic, religious, financial, and in- 
dustrial appeals. Publicity deals with the novel, the timely. 



I 



i 



INFORMATION SERVICES 307 

It studies the public feeling of the moment, and is essen- 
tially a form of promotion. The professional requirements 
and standards of each publicity undertaking must therefore 
be carefully determined. Qualifications vary with the sub- 
ject-matter ; but twelve publicity agencies in New York 
City interviewed in connection with a survey of oppor- 
tunities for women in publicity work made by the employ- 
ment department of the Central Branch of the Young 
Women's Christian Association in 1920 agreed that from 
two to five years of newspaper experience, including actual 
reporting, was essential. Work on special ''drives" or cam- 
paigns is temporary in the nature of the case ; but an increas- 
ing number of social and civic organizations are maintaining 
permanent publicity departments. Opinions vary as to 
whether workers in such departments should be trained 
journalists and advertising workers or trained workers in 
the special field. The facts and opinions presented should 
certainly be from first-hand and competent acquaintance. 
College and professional women are being employed by 
most publicity organizations or departments ; but the field 
is limited. A few experienced women are setting up as 
publicity consultants. Salaries for experienced women are 
around $50 a week, and are said to be about ten per cent 
lower than those for men. 



CHAPTER XVI 

ART services: literature, drama, pageantry; architec- 
ture ; OTHER FINE AND APPLIED ARTS 

Although the arts have long taken high rank among 
the professions and possess many of the fundamental pro- 
fessional attributes — disinterestedness, group spirit, and a 
pubHc and social value increasingly recognized — the demands 
upon their practitioners are so exceptional, so individual, 
in many ways so immeasurable, that it is impossible to 
discuss professional women in the arts as in the other 
professions. On the other hand, the arts interpenetrate so 
many professions, and their contribution is so vitally needed 
in our modern social order, and falls so far short of what 
it might be, that any treatment of women professional 
workers would be incomplete without at least a general 
statement of their status and opportunities in these fields. 
Moreover, women workers have been numerous in both the 
fine and the applied arts, and nowhere else has their pro- 
fessional achievement been judged more wholly on its 
merits. 

In the fine arts particularly, this achievement depends 
upon a high degree of native endowment reinforced by the 
best modern training, favorable surroundings, and oppor- 
tunities for the practice of the art chosen. We no longer 
accept complacently the old idea that artistic ability finds 
its fullest expression through struggling with untoward 
circumstances. Without artistic ability the possession of 
technical skill does not bring success, and even when both 
are of a high order, the artist's road to an assured profes- 
sional position is long and difficult. It shows the strength 
of the art impulse and the depth of the artist's inner satis- 
factions that so many people are willing to face the dis- 

308 



ART SERVICES 309 

appointments and uncertainties of the artist's career. In 
the applied arts there is room for more kinds and degrees of 
talent and technical equipment; but here too, real preemi- 
nence is rare. In fact, the distinction between the fine 
and the applied arts is historic and practical rather than 
fixed and absolute. All arts are based on the same funda- 
mental principles, and all are more or less related to the 
crafts and industries and to the public and private conduct 
of life. Women contemplating entering any of the art pro- 
fessions need to be sure of their own artistic aptitude and to 
inform themselves thoroughly with respect to preparation 
and opportunities. No preparation other than the best is 
worth having. 

The fine arts are commonly said to include literature, 
drama, music, painting, and sculpture. Architecture is the 
great link between the fine and the applied arts, as it is 
between art and the engineering sciences. Closely related 
to it are landscape architecture and design, and city and 
town planning. Related in another way are interior decora- 
tion and design as applied to furniture, fabrics, wall-papers, 
carvings, tiles, glass, porcelain, metal and leather work, 
basketry, and other articles of interior use and ornament. 
Another group of design arts has to do with textiles and 
clothing, jewelry, lace, and embroidery. In another group 
are the art of book binding and the graphic arts, etching, 
engraving, printing, illustrating, poster making, and possibly 
artistic photography. The motion picture and the music rec- 
ord both have their artistic aspects and possibilities. 

The arts are also classified as the space arts and the 
time arts, with literature, the drama, and the dance partak- 
ing of the character of both. Fundamentally the effect pro- 
duced by any work of art, whether spatial or temporal, is 
due to certain combinations of pattern and rhythm which re- 
inforce old and deeply rooted organic and instinctive pat- 
terns and rhythms in human beings. This unusual degree 
of correspondence between the object and the organism pro- 
duces an effect at the same time of life-enhancement and 
of reconciliation, a sense of escape from conflict, limita- 
tion, and self-consciousness and the attainment for a brief 
space of a deeper insight and a fuller satisfaction than or- 



310 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

dinary life affords. It is this correspondence which makes 
the work of art a direct and powerful source of emotion 
and suggestion and thus an agency of unique social value 
through its ability to transmit to a group of people com- 
mon feelings, moods, and attitudes of mind. Its definite 
subject-matter is subordinate to the kind of emotional re- 
sponse that it evokes. 

We are coming to see that with the complexities, special- 
izations, and separations of modern life, we need some- 
thing fundamental that shall bring people together, and 
furnish some interpretation of these things, some compen- 
sation for them, even if it cannot do away with them. 
Moreover, national prohibition and reductions in hours of 
labor compel us to face the urgent problems of the uses 
of leisure time. Art has a major role to play in any 
adequate program for public recreation. Its place in fac- 
tory production is more difficult to determine. But we 
are attacking the problems of industrial art with new vigor 
since the war, and are learning much from other countries. 



As has been said, professional work in journalism, pub- 
lishing, and advertising is commercial rather than literary, 
although it may give acquaintance with literary externals. 
The essence of literature as an art is the impulse to com- 
municate to others through one of the many literary forms 
>— poem, play, short story, novel, essay, criticism, history — 
a fresh and individual interpretation of some aspect of hu- 
man life. This impulse is strengthened and embodied in 
appropriate literary form not through living in any sort 
of "literary atmosphere" but through thinking and feeling 
clearly and vividly and gaining insight into personality, 
situation, and the varieties of human experience. People 
do not begin as writers of literature, and no woman should 
expect to earn her living through authorship until she has 
made a name for herself as a writer. It is probably not 
desirable that she should. Most good writing is done in 
intervals of creative leisure. To look over a volume of 
Who's Who to discover the occupations of contemporary 
writers is an informing exercise for a beginner. There are, 



ART SERVICES 311 

however, certain literary and social tendencies of to-day 
which are likely to influence young women with genuine 
literary ability and modern outlook. Chief among these are 
current movements in poetry and the drama, both of which 
are showing vigorous life and commanding wide popular 
interest. The magazines are hospitable to really good verse 
and to good writing of other kinds. The course in play- 
writing given by Professor George P. Baker of Harvard 
University has led to similar courses of a pre-professional 
and professional character in other colleges. Not only 
college training in English but the general liberalizing and 
enriching of mind and experience that come through col- 
lege work and college personal contacts are a valuable back- 
ground for the young writer. Literature is no longer 
thought of as a matter of pure inspiration. The literary 
artist, like other artists, has to serve an apprenticeship. A 
student with literary interests and aptitudes receives now- 
adays in college generous encouragement and assistance, 
and has varied opportunities to try herself out in college 
publications, prize contests, and the like. Outside of col- 
lege, the competition is severe. 

The social contribution of art in enabling people to share 
a concrete and satisfying experience has already been 
spoken of. We are coming to understand more clearly 
that full sharing must be active and not merely passive, a 
genuine participation. One of the great weaknesses of 
modern commercial recreation through the theater and the 
moving-picture is its passivity. It is the logical result of 
long hours and routine work, the recreation of tired and 
bored people. With greater leisure there is prospect of a 
wider demand for more active and more artistic types of 
recreation. The emotional appeals will not have to be so 
crude and so violent in order to overcome the inertia of 
fatigue. Gilbert Chesterton has lately observed character- 
istically : "To amuse oneself is a mark of gaiety, vitality, 
and love of life. To be amused is a mark of melancholy, 
surrender, and potential suicide." There have been efforts 
during the last few years to develop popular interest and 
participation in various arts through community pageants 
and folk-dancing, community singing, community drama, 



312 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

exhibitions of community handicrafts, competitions and ex- 
hibitions in industrial design, travehng collections of pic- 
tures. The numerous parades during and after the war 
revealed the possibilities, good and bad, of civic decoration. 
Libraries, art museums, schools, social settlements, com- 
munity centers, city governments, have all been helping to 
show that art is not a luxury of the few — as it never has 
been until modern times — but a possession and an activity 
of the many. Only beginnings have been made. But in 
ten years the progress has been notable, and the next ten 
years promise far more comprehensive results. 

Of these various efforts to develop a social art, the growth 
of the civic and art drama, as distinct from the commercial 
drama, is most conspicuous. It has expressed itself in 
diverse ways, through little theaters, of which there are now 
more than fifty; special companies giving outdoor plays, 
like the Ben Greet Company and the Coburn Players; per- 
formances under academic auspices, as in the Harvard 
Stadium and the University of California Greek Theater; 
plays written and performed by students or by other groups 
of amateurs or semi-amateurs ; neighborhood plays like those 
for which the Httle Neighborhood Theater in New York 
was designed; community pageant and drama on a large 
scale like those composed and directed by Percy MacKaye. 
Hitherto the movement has been more or less scattered, 
amateur, at times a matter of pose. It has been a protest 
and a demonstration rather than an organized construc- 
tive movement. But it stands for a fundamental idea, 
and it gives every sign of becoming an increasingly impor- 
tant part of normal community life. It is intimately allied 
with the movement for stage setting and decoration in 
accordance with aesthetic and psychological principles and 
with modern movements in dancing and music, which are 
calling for the combined efforts oi dramatists, poets, ac- 
tors, musicians, interpretative dancers, designers of settings 
and costumes, producers, directors, and managers. Pro- 
fessional women are serving in all these capacities, and are 
likely to be in increasing demand. There is still difficulty 
in securing really professional training except through ap- 
prenticeship and experience. The Carnegie Institute of 



ART SERVICES 313 

Technology has been working out for several years a com- 
prehensive course in drama, festival, and stage setting; and 
there are a few standard schools of the drama, notably the 
American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, which 
has long been under the direction of Mr. Franklin H. 
Sargent. Madame Yvette Guilbert has recently opened a 
School of the Theater in New York. Professor Baker's 
course in play-writing and his dramatic workshop at Har- 
vard have been a veritable school of playwrights, and 
similar work at Vassar and in other institutions promises 
like results. There are various schools of classic, posture, 
and folk dancing. Experience in college and in settlement 
dramatic work and in music-school settlements has often 
proved of value. The National Board of Young Women's 
Christian Associations has established a department of pag- 
eantry and the drama; Community Service, Incorporated, 
a similar department. Rural community drama has been 
encouraged under the leadership of the College of Agri- 
culture of Cornell University, the State Agricultural College 
of North Dakota, and by other agencies. The Drama 
League of America with headquarters in Washington, a 
central dramatic bookshop, and branches and bookshops in 
various cities, fosters genuine dramatic interests of all kinds. 
Special efforts are being made to develop the dramatic in- 
terests and standards of children. 

This widespread and growing attention to the drama as a 
social and educational agency is providing opportunities for 
v/omen in connection with settlement houses, community 
centers, Community Service, Incorporated, the Young Wom- 
en's Christian Associations, dramatic associations, civic the- 
aters, and to some extent in schools and colleges. Pageant 
directors usually do their work on a fee-charging basis; 
other workers may be employed on a salary. Both training 
and employment are still unstandardized, but the field chal- 
lenges the attention of women of artistic and social interests 
and equipment who are ready to throw in their lot with a 
significant movement and to help in shaping it. 

The relation of professional women to the commercial 
theater and even more to the whole motion-picture industry 



314 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 



is far more difficult to determine and to discuss in brief. 
Leaders of the stage have always stood for its artistic char- 
acter and ideals; and many of them are in the full as in 
the popular sense ''professionals," continually studying the 
problems of acting as one of the great arts. A woman seri- 
ously considering acting as a profession can probably do 
nothing better than first to study carefully what great actors 
past and present have said of the stage and possibly to con- 
sult some well-known actor or actress of high standards, 
who takes an interest in the training of beginners. A recent 
book on Training for the Stage strongly advocates a year 
or two of study in a good school of acting like the Ameri- 
can Academy of Dramatic Arts, and laments that we have 
no publicly supported schools, such as are common in 
European countries. "The dramatic profession is the only 
one in the United States in which the ignorant beginner is 
paid to be taught, and taught by a slow, laborious, con- 
fused method of picking his way through the mazes of 
theatrical experience, experimenting meanwhile before the 
paying public. The necessity for an educational policy for 
the actor, not only for his general culture and the technical 
requirements of his craft but for the development of all 
his personal powers and faculties, is slowly but surely ob- 
taining recognition. Indeed, the denial of the value of good 
educational preparation and systematic study calls in ques- 
tion the very right of acting to be termed an art or profes- 
sion." ^ The stock company no longer affords adequate 
training. The civic and art drama and the commercial 
drama are undoubtedly learning from each other. In the 
meantime the road to artistic success on the regular stage 
is long, difficult, and uncertain, with constant hard work 
under trying conditions and small and irregular financial 
returns. Only women whose ability can find no adequate 
satisfaction elsewhere, and who have both mental and phys- 
ical vigor and staying power, should attempt the actor's 
career. Successful women playrights are not uncommon ; 
and there are a few women dramatic agents and play- 
brokers. The woman dramatic critic is rare. 

Two w^omen connected with one of the most successful 
* Arthur Hornblow Training for the Stage (1916), p. 130, 



M 



ART SERVICES 315 

of the "little theater" ventures in New York filled our 
schedules in 1918. One, a graduate of a western university 
and of a well-known school of expression, was a producer 
and director of plays for the company, having full charge 
of the production of the play on the acting side and advising 
with the scenic director. The other has been vice-president 
of the company, play reader, and at times an actress. 

The director says: "There are comparatively no women 
producers. It has always been a theory of the theater 
that a man must direct, and it is hard to break in. I got 
in through the Little Theater Movement, which is much 
broader in regard to women. I attend all possible perform- 
ances of all kinds, and study production in this way. The 
only way to secure positions is to apply in person. It is 
very difficult unless you can show your work, or come 
highly recommended from well-known people. The whole 
theatrical game is a gamble !" 



The development of the motion-picture business has been 
so extraordinary, and is still so far from being fully 
evolved or stable that it is impossible to make assured state- 
ments or even prophecies about its professional and art 
aspects. It has hitherto been chiefly in the hands of pro- 
ducers recruited from the commercial spoken theater, and 
can be compared with that on its business side and with 
journalistic and advertising enterprises (see Chapter XV) 
rather than with the arts. Nevertheless, it has large artistic 
possibilities; and its social appeal is so tremendous that 
it merits careful attention from those committed to the de- 
velopment of a modern popular art. Its psychology cannot 
be ignored any more than the psychology of the Sunday 
newspaper, the comic supplement, or billboard and electric 
advertising. It shares with them the drawback of being 
a passive and at the same time a highly stimulating kind 
of experience. But in spite of these limitations, its con- 
creteness, vividness, and accessibility give it high potential 
value as an educational and artistic medium. Its educa- 
tional use is being steadily developed ; and some of the 
leading writers of the day are studying its techniques. Some 



3i6 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

of the great spectacular films have genuine artistic beauty, 
and have invited the cooperation of artists and other experts 
in their preparation. The recent gift by the head of the 
Eastman Kodak Company of three and a half million dol- 
lars to the University of Rochester to endow a great school 
to aid in the development of appreciation of the highest 
type of music in alliance with the highest type of motion 
picture may mark the beginning of their recognition as an 
art form. Hitherto professional women other than actresses 
have had little to do with the motion-picture business ex- 
cept as secretaries to directors, or as writers of synopses, 
scenarios, or motion-picture advertisements. But its grow- 
ing dependence upon historic and artistic research and upon 
methods worked out in the best modern pageantry and stage 
setting is likely to increase opportunities for women pro- 
fessionally trained along these lines. 



Professional musicians, painters, and sculptors secure 
their training through the best schools and masters in this 
country and abroad, and make their reputations and careers 
through the quality of their work. Unlike European coun- 
tries we have no publicly supported schools and fellowships 
for the encouragement of the fine arts, save in the case of 
a few museum schools under public control. But we are 
apparently entering upon a period of large private en- 
dowments for this purpose. In addition to the Eastman 
foundation already mentioned, the past year has seen the 
establishment of the Juillard Musical Foundation with an 
endowment estimated at from five to twenty million dollars 
and of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Art Foundation with 
an endowment of a million in addition to the donor's country 
estate and art collections. Both are primarily for the bene- 
fit of promising students of the respective arts. A collabora- 
tion of the arts in the public interest is seen in the recently 
inaugurated practice of giving a series of free concerts in 
the great city art museums, such as the Metropolitan 
Museum in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago. 
The three-year fellowships of the American Academy in 
Rome in painting, sculpture, architecture, and landscape 



ART SERVICES 317 

architecture, of the value of $1,000 a year, are now for the 
first time open to women. There are also a few traveling 
fellowships in painting and music at $1,500 a year. There 
is a National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. 
The most frequent salaried positions for women well 
equipped in the fine arts are to be found in teaching, par- 
ticularly in public schools, and in museums. Special train- 
ing in the teaching of art to children of various ages may 
be secured at such institutions as Teachers College of 
Columbia University, the School of Education of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago, and the Massachusetts Normal Art 
School. The new psychology of art teaching breaks down 
the sharp distinction between the fine and applied arts, 
and makes much of composition and pattern as applied 
to articles made by the children themselves. There are 
also more limited opportunities in art schools and classes; 
and there is every prospect of a great impetus arising 
largely out of the war toward the teaching of industrial 
art as an important aspect of vocational education. The 
American Federation of Arts in 1918 passed a resolution 
urging the Federal Board for Vocational Education to 
encourage the development of this vocational field. ^ Grand 
Rapids, Michigan, a great furniture-making center, has 
estabHshed a school of art and industry as part of its public 
school system ; and there are other general or special schools 
such as the Rhode Island School of Design and the Massa- 
chusetts state-supported textile schools. Teachers of in- 
dustrial art are likely* to be in great demand. They should 
preferably have had some European training. 

Opportunities are developing in the fields of community 
and school group music. The war greatly increased the 
popularity of group singing under trained leaders ; and al- 
though the majority of these leaders are men, there are 
places for women leaders in shops and factories where 
women are employed, in schools, settlements, community 
clubs of women, Girl Scout and Young Women's Christian 

^ See Industrial Art, A National Asset: A Series of Graphic 
Charts. U. S, Bureau of Education. Industrial Education Circular, 
No. 3. May, 1919. 



3i8 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Association groups, prisons and reformatories for women, 
and so on. 



Architecture is the most thoroughly professionaHzed of 
the applied arts in which women have engaged. While 
the number of women architects is still small in comparison 
with the number of men, it has increased markedly in the last 
forty years. According to the federal census, there were 
seventeen women architects in the United States in 1880; 
three hundred and two in 1910. These, however, were 
less than one per cent of the total number of architects. 
The increase in the past ten years has probably been small. 
Only four women are reported by the Bureau of Education 
as receiving architectural degrees in 1916. Nevertheless 
many of the larger cities have women architects in success- 
ful independent practice ; and others are in salaried positions 
with architectural firms. Still others are using their archi- 
tectural training as an invaluable background for their work 
as interior decorators. The architectural profession has not 
been notably hospitable to the small body of women work- 
ers ; and it has been alleged that women architects are 
seriously at a disadvantage on the engineering and con- 
tracting sides of the work. This is a statement that cannot 
as yet be wholly disproved. But most of the best schools 
of architecture are open to women as well as to men, so 
that they may receive the same training. And a few women 
architects have handled without difficulty both the letting of 
contracts and the actual supervision of workmen. Many, 
however, have preferred office positions, and even with full 
architectural training have perhaps too often been content 
to serve as architectural draftsmen. An apprenticeship of 
this kind in a good office is, however, of value to every 
architect. In some states, practicing architects must be 
licensed. With the housing experience gained during the 
war and the urgency of present housing problems, espe- 
cially for industrial workers and other people of small in- 
comes, there seems a new opportunity for women architects 
to direct their attention to building for these groups and 
to the problem of community centers. There is also a chance 



ART SERVICES 319 

to specialize in the remodeling of old houses, both in town 
and country. A woman architect in New York has done 
distinctive work in the making over of old-fashioned dwell- 
ings into attractive apartment houses. It is often said that 
there should be a woman architect in every office to pass 
upon the practical convenience and utility of all plans for 
private houses and public institutions. While this is un- 
doubtedly true, it by no means exhausts the range of pos- 
sibilities for women. They should follow their individual 
bent and the demands of the profession as freely as men. 
The professional training for architecture is long and 
severe ; but it appeals in so many ways that it is surprising 
that more women with tastes and aptitudes in these direc- 
tions do not choose it as a profession. 

There are probably more women landscape architects 
than architects proper; but not so many with a training 
which measures up to the highest standards. It is difficult 
to draw the line between the woman landscape architect, 
the woman landscape gardener, and even the simple con- 
sulting gardener. There are two small schools of land- 
scape architecture exclusively for women; but women seri- 
ously considering this work will do well to consult the best 
authorities in the profession in regard to training. Several 
large universities give excellent courses.^ With the increase 
in country estates and the greater interest in formal land- 
scape treatment that is likely to follow our closer European 
contacts, there should be less uncertain opportunities for the 
thoroughly equipped woman in this profession. Large archi- 
tectural firms not infrequently have landscape architects on 
their staffs. 

It sometimes seems as if half the women of our ac- 
quaintance were becoming interior decorators ; and the term 
covers every type from women of prolonged professional 
training to amateurs adventuring in business on a small cap^ 
ital of taste and encouragement from their friends. Voca-' 
tions for Business and Professional Women says that "at 

* See Henry V. Hubbard and Theodora Kimball. Landscape 
Architecture — A Classification Scheme, Harvard University Press 
(1920). 



320 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

the foot of the scale are those with little training who are not 
much more than shoppers" and at the other extreme women 
;^vith from six to nine years of training who are recognized 
as experts. It is indeed a "profession in the making," and 
the present lively interest in the subject, stimulated by the 
popular magazines and the flood of art objects, art ideas, and 
art catchwords swelled by the war, is bringing into it in even 
greater numbers people without professional equipment or 
attitude. On the other hand, a number of experienced 
and well-estabHshed women decorators in New York have 
been working for several years toward a professional or- 
ganization and a formulation of standards of preparation, 
apprenticeship, and compensation. It is only through such 
efforts that the occupation can really acquire a professional 
status. It suffers from being so largely on the basis of in- 
dependent and competitive business, although there are sala- 
ried positions to be had with the larger firms and in the 
interior decorating departments of the great department 
stores and furnishing houses. As a whole, it is perhaps not 
unfair to say that it is at present more nearly on the basis 
of dressmaking than on the basis of a profession. Never- 
theless, many of the standard schools of art and design 
are giving courses of two or even three years in interior 
decorating, including the elements of architecture, the study 
of historic periods, design, color, ornament, furniture, tex- 
tiles. This training involves the working out of concrete 
problems or "projects" in decoration and the use of illus- 
trative materials in museums, available private collections, 
and commercial houses of reputation. The University of 
Minnesota is requiring the first two years' work in archi- 
tecture of its students of interior decorating. The Beaux- 
Arts Institute of Design in New York, in cooperation with 
the Society of Beaux Arts Architects, the Art Alliance of 
America, the National Sculpture Society, and the Society 
of Mural Painters, offers courses in architectural design 
interior decoration and industrial art design, sculpture, 
modeling of ornament, and composition in mural painting. 
At present, training in interior decorating has marked 
limitations on the business side — buying, marketing, making 
of specifications and contracts, estimating of costs — which 



I 



ART SERVICES 321 

might be done away with through practice and apprentice ar- 
rangements between the schools and interior decorating 
firms and departments of high standing. Apprenticeship 
to-day is on an individual and precarious basis with low pay, 
seasonal fluctuation of employment, and no assurance of 
training beyond what may be picked up. 

With the beginnings already made, interior decorating is 
at a point where it might easily progress through the further 
stages of professional evolution — organization of associa- 
tions ; formulation of educational standards and programs ; 
definition of apprenticeship ; standardization of salaries and 
fees ; possible registration of qualified workers ; holding of 
exhibitions and competitions. It has much to learn in 
these matters from the allied profession of architecture. 
Interior decorators, like other modern workers, tend to spe- 
cialization in hangings, furniture, lighting arrangements, and 
so on. But to be truly professional, they must have an 
understanding of the principles and problems of their en- 
tire field. 

Of more permanent and recognized artistic importance 15 
the work of the mural or decorative painter. There has 
been a marked development of this form of art in this 
country within recent years, and it is to be found in the 
*arger private houses as well as in public buildings, hotels, 
and occasionally in churches. At least one woman mural 
painter, Miss Violet Oakley, has achieved distinction. The 
designing of stained glass is a related art. The decorative 
painter also frequently designs magazine covers and posters; 
and some of them are successful illustrators. The field of 
poster designing has been greatly enlarged by the war, and 
American posters have improved conspicuously in effective- 
ness and artistic character. They will undoubtedly continue 
to be used in many forms of pubHcity, and offer a prac- 
tically new opportunity to women of good modern training, 
originality, and understanding of the nature of popular ap- 
peal. Their recent artistic development is bound to im- 
prove the character of much billboard, display, and maga- 
zine advertising. 

Illustrating in both black and white and color is com- 



322 woME^J Professional workers 

monly divided into pictorial, including magazine, book, 
or newspaper illustrating, and commercial, including fash- 
ion drawing and the preparation of other drawings and 
sketches for trade catalogues, trade journals, and the ad- 
vertising sections of magazines and papers. The growth 
of the greeting-card industry has increased the demand for 
pictorial illustrations. Most of the art schools provide 
special courses in poster designing and illustrating. They 
are recognized forms of commercial art. Under this head- 
ing may also be included commercial photography, which 
is largely used in the reproduction of trade objects and 
models. A commercial artist is likely to need a supple- 
mentary knowledge of photographic processes and other 
forms of mechanical reproduction. The woman cartoonist 
is practically unknown, but there is no reason why she 
may not appear. 

Industrial art in the narrower sense has to do with the 
preparation of designs to be used in the processes of 
manufacturing by machinery. In the broader sense it in- 
cludes the crafts, the making by hand of artistic objects 
of daily use. Industrial designers prepare designs for 
textiles, especially for printed or woven patterns in silk 
or cotton ; for clothing ; for lace and embroidery ; for 
jewelry; for wall-paper, rugs and carpets; furniture, pot- 
tery, glass, and metal work. The war has made tremendous 
changes in industrial art, by throwing us upon our own 
resources and forcing manufacturers for the first time seri- 
ously to study the reasons for European superiority in many 
fields. We are at the beginning of a new and active period. 
The industries are cooperating with the art schools and with 
the great museums. They are offering prizes in design 
competitions, and establishing scholarships and fellowships. 
The Metropolitan Museum has within the past year ap- 
pointed an associate in industrial arts, and held an indus- 
trial art exhibit with special reference to textiles and cos- 
tumes. The Art Alliance of America has conducted several 
contests and exhibitions of industrial design with prizes 
offered by the great trade paper, Women's Wear, and by 
various manufacturers. Plans have been matured for a 
comprehensive survey of our existing industrial art re- 



ART SERVICES 323 

sources by the National Society for Vocational Education 
in cooperation with art schools, art museums, and manu- 
facturers and looking to the development of a national pro- 
gram for the training of designers. Among industries to 
be studied are the costume trades, textiles, printing, jewelry, 
silverware, wall-paper, lighting fixtures, ceramics, furniture, 
and interior decoration. 

There is a corresponding activity in the field of the 
artistic handicrafts and a growing understanding of their 
bearing on artistic production as a whole. The National 
Society of Craftsmen has founded a school for the train- 
ing of workers, and advocates the establishment of such 
schools in connection with factories. In June 1919 the Art 
Alliance of America held an exhibition of the handicrafts 
of foreign-born workers, which attracted the attention of 
manufacturers. Through its artistic industries section, it 
is now organizing a system with neighborhood houses as 
centers for bringing these handicrafts into relations with 
manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, both as artistic 
products and as offering suggestions for designs. Individual 
social settlements have long encouraged and disposed of 
these foreign handicraft articles; but this seems the first 
effort to bring them into the main stream of production. 
There have likewise been associations for fostering native 
handicraft industries, such as those of Deerfield, Massa- 
chusetts, and of the southern mountaineers. The Women's 
Educational and Industrial Union maintains a shop for ar- 
tistic handwork, and there are various societies of arts 
and crafts. The development of occupational therapy in 
hospitals has led in some cases to the production of articles 
of artistic merit and selling value. Occupational therapists, 
or teachers of crafts in hospitals, are dealt with in Chapter 
V. An Art Center has been incorporated in New York City 
for the promotion of industrial art, and has the backing of 
many associations of artists and art craftsmen. It is hoped 
that similar centers will be established in all the important 
manufacturing cities. 

From many different directions comes a demand which 
exceeds the supply for designers, craftsmen, and other work- 
ers in applied art. There are already many women in the 



324 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

art occupations, some of them receiving high salaries. 
Among them are several research experts in textiles and 
other special art fields and a larger number who are expert 
craftsmen in jewelry, weaving, bookbinding, and other 
crafts. A number are in business for themselves. In the 
future women will undoubtedly have to meet higher pro- 
fessional standards and secure more thorough and pro- 
longed professional training. Besides teaching in art schools, 
general schools, and vocational schools, there is a prospect 
of positions as supervisors and instructors in factory schools 
and of young workers in service. 

The American Art Annual, published by the American 
Federation of Arts, with headquarters in Washington, pre- 
sents a yearly survey of the range of art activities in this 
country. At the 1918 meeting of this association, the find- 
ing of positions for industrial art workers was discussed. 
The Art Alliance of America maintains in New York a 
placement bureau for this purpose, and is probably the best 
source of information and assistance. Salaries in applied 
art work are so unstandardized, and are changing so rapidly, 
that it is unsafe to give any figures. A designer with any 
training is likely to receive $25 a week to begin with; 
and $50 a week and up are received by workers of some 
experience. 



CHAPTER XVII 

TECHNICAL SERVICES I SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES; PSY- 
CHOLOGY; STATISTICS 



The training acquired in university and college scientific 
laboratories, especially in bacteriology and other aspects of 
biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, and geology, and 
college training in mathematics and statistics have a direct 
relation to scientific and technical work in a variety of 
occupations. These subjects are distinctly instrumental in 
their applications; and this chapter, accordingly, is not so 
much a discussion of a relatively independent field of pro- 
fessional employment as it is a discussion of the openings 
for scientifically and technically trained women in a number 
of fields. It connects closely with the chapters on health 
services, food and living services, personnel and industrial 
services, commercial services, library and museum services, 
and educational services. It bears intimately upon govern- 
ment services. As fast as any field of work develops agen- 
cies for investigation and research, it calls for women with 
one or other of these types of equipment. 

Before the war teaching was the major occupation 
of women trained in the sciences, although they had to meet 
a strong feeling, especially in high schools, that science de- 
partments were a man's province. But for at least ten 
years before 1914 a small but increasing number of women 
had been going into public and private health laboratories, 
federal departments, notably the Department of Agriculture, 
and in an experimental fashion, into industrial laboratories. 
When it became evident that the war was to be won to a 
large extent by scientists and engineers, and the actual 
and threatened shortage of men in these professions became 
acute, attention turned to the only other source of supply, 

325 



326 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

scientifically and technically trained women. It proved to 
be meager, for the number of really expert scientific women 
was small ; there were practically no women engineers, in 
spite of an occasional graduate from an engineering school 
and few women draftsmen. The universities and colleges 
adapted their scientific training for women to some extent 
in the direction of war needs. Certain technical schools, 
such as the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Case 
School of Applied Science, offered special courses in the 
summer and autumn of 191 8 to train women as mechanical 
draftsmen and ''engineers of tests" for the Ordnance De- 
partment. Others, like Drexel Institute, organized courses 
for dietitians and "laboratory technicians." Some of the 
great industrial corporations, like the DuPont de Nemours 
Company, the General Electric Company, and the Eastman 
Kodak Company, working on war orders, took groups of 
young college women into their laboratories, giving them 
training in service courses in special branches of industrial 
chemistry, engineering, and optics. Government depart- 
ments called for women topographical draftsmen and map- 
makers; the Bureau of Standards made use of women 
laboratory assistants in chemistry and physics. 

While many of these women were released at the end 
of the war, and while the total number employed has prob- 
ably been exaggerated, there is no doubt that their war- 
service accustomed industrial employers and government 
departments to the idea of women as laboratory and re- 
search workers. They are continuing to turn to the col- 
leges and the occupations bureaus for suitable candidates, 
especially in the fields of public health, industrial chemistry 
and physics, psychology, and statistics ; to some extent in 
engineering, in so far as it has to do with office and labora- 
tory procedures. They are retaining a number of women 
war-workers as permanent members of their force. 

An editorial article in the Journal of Industrial and 
Engineering Chemistry,^ entitled The Woman Chemist Has 
Come to Stay, quotes the following estimate from the 
chief chemist of the Illinois Steel Company of the women 
chemists in his laboratory during the war: "They learned 

^ March, 1919. 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 327 

the work as quickly as any men of like training could have 
learned it. . . . They were and are careful, conscientious, 
reliable workers in the field of industrial chemistry, taking 
their turn at night work cheerfully, and so far as I can 
learn, contentedly. During the month of July, 1918, there 
were employed on iron and steel work thirty-one men and 
seven women. Total number of determinations made ... on 
iron and steel by women ... 15.6 per cent of the total. 
Per cent of women employed, 18.5 — not quite their share ; 
they were learning the work. During the month of October 
there were thirty-six men and an average of six and a 
half women . . . Total number of determinations made 
. . . by women 16 per cent of the total. Percentage of 
women employed, 15.3. From this it is readily seen that 
as soon as the women learned the work they carried their 
share. . . . During the hot weather, when to sleep, for those 
working at night, was almost impossible, the percentage of 
women off duty was less than the men. The percentage 
off duty on account of sickness is not greater than the men. 
In fact, it has not equaled the men in our particular case, 
several of our men being on extended sick leave. Requests 
for days off duty by women . . . are not more than those 
of men." 

In another part of the same journal is a discussion of 
the over-supply of chemists called forth by an article in 
a preceding number urging unemployed chemists to return 
to the colleges and universities for more advanced train- 
ing and "to utilize their time in further education or even 
in teaching!" A professor of chemical engineering in a 
great university sends the following estimate of the value 
of graduate training in chemistry, which may well be taken 
to heart by women chemists and indeed by all women in 
science : "Some four years ago I attempted to arrive at an 
estimate of the value to the industries of men with gradu- 
ate training. The estimates were made in various terms 
by men experienced in the chemical industries. . . . The re- 
sults finally arrived at were: that a man with one yea£_of 
graduate training is of approximately double the value of 
a man having only the bachelor's degree; that with two 
years of graduate training he is three times as valuable ; and 



328 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

that with the doctor's degree, ordinarily representing three 
years' graduate training, he is on an average five times 
as valuable as the man with only the bachelor's degree. Also 
it was the general opinion that for a given age the salaries 
paid, beyond that necessary for a bare living . . . were not 
far from . . . the ratio just mentioned." 

The importance of thorough training for women in sci- 
ence can hardly be too much emphasized at present, when 
as a result of taking on imperfectly and hastily trained 
women during the war, employers betray a tendency to 
look upon all women scientific workers as "technicians" 
and routine assistants rather than as professional workers 
in the full sense. Not only for their own careers but for 
the sake of others who may follow, scientific women need 
to have unimpeachable qualifications, to expect no favors, 
and to show marked tenacity and courage. They are still 
pioneers. As a result of the war, however, it seems to be 
admitted that a woman may fill any purely laboratory posi- 
tion for which she is equipped, even that of director. As 
yet she is not considered as in line for positions having to 
do with production, nor for those involving chemical or 
other scientific engineering. Thoroughly prepared women, 
while willing to begin at the bottom and to demonstrate their 
ability, should at the same time be on their guard against 
being used by employers to get expert work more cheaply 
done than by men, and should stand firmly for recognition 
and promotion on their record of work accomplished. There 
is professional as well as industrial "undercutting." But 
employers complain that women in laboratories are not al- 
ways willing to be held accountable for failures as well as 
for successes. 

Material collected in 1920 for a bulletin on The Woman 
Chemist '^ shows salaries of fifteen chemists ranging from 
$1,450 to over $3,000, with a median salary of $2,000. Of 
twelve giving the date of taking their present positions, 
ten have entered upon the work since August, 1917. Eleven 
out of the fifteen have received their highest degrees since 

*For the use of this material acknowledgment is due to the Bu- 
reau of Vocational Information. For further information, see 
The Woman Chemist. Bulletin No. 4, 1921. 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 329 

1914. Two have doctor's degrees; five master of science 
degrees ; two master of arts ; six bachelor of science or 
bachelor of arts. No clear correlations between degrees 
and salaries emerge, although the medians increase slightly 
with the higher degrees. The highest salary is received 
by a woman holding the B. S. and M. S. degrees from two 
well-known western state universities. One Ph. D. at $2,500 
is head of the testing and research laboratory of an eastern 
manufacturing company. She does not state her years of 
service. Another, who has just received her doctorate, is 
analytical and research chemist in a yeast company at $1,800. 
Others in industrial work include research chemists and 
assistants in electrical, carburundum, and rubber regenerat- 
ing companies; an analytical and research chemist in a glass- 
ware company; a consulting chemist in a jewelers' associa- 
tion, and a chemist in the dyestufifs technical laboratory and 
dyestufifs sales department of a great chemical industry. 
Two are in the federal Department of Agriculture, one in 
the Bureau of Chemistry, the other as a food and nutrition 
specialist in the States Relations Service in charge of in- 
vestigations on cereals and baking. One is director of 
the bureau of foods and drugs of a state board of public 
health, and has charge of the inspection of dairies, bakeries, 
and groceries, at a salary of $2,400. Two are in charge 
of the private laboratories of physicians, one also serving 
as a hospital clinical pathologist and bacteriologist.^ 

A bacteriologist filling our schedule is in charge of the 
diagnostic laboratory of a state department of health, her 
position involving diagnostic work, supervision of two as- 
sistant bacteriologists, two laboratory assistants, two clerks, 
and two office boys. She is a graduate of the Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology, has done graduate work, and 
been a college instructor. She selects her assistants, who 
are college women, and recommends their appointment. In 
1918 she received a salary of $2,000, which was higher than 

^The War Department Committee on Classification of Personnel 
prepared specifications in 1918 for over fifty kinds of chemists. 
See O. P. Hopkins. Wage and Salary Earners in Chemical In- 
dustries. Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. August 
I, 1919. 



330 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

that paid to her predecessor, a man. A chemist in a safety 
razor company makes analyses of steel, brass, salts, and 
plating solutions. 

Some of the comments follow : 

'Tor the majority of women straight chemistry will not 
get them very far. The big thing in chemistry is chemical 
engineering, and few women would ever be fitted for that 
work, while routine chemistry would become very monoto- 
nous. . . . That would be the field to which most women 
would be assigned in a manufacturing plant." 

"Upon leaving college, the girl who has spent four years 
specializing in chemistry . . . considers herself as a chem- 
ist; but she will find only the most rudimentary positions 
open to her. She should have discovered, however, along 
what branches of chemistry her interest lies, and for which 
great division of work — routine or research — she is best 
fitted. Many delude themselves upon this point. 'Routine' 
sounds dull and uninteresting, while 'research' has an adven- 
turous sound. . . . Neither is true. Work in one field is no 
more fascinating nor more wearying and vexatious than in 
the other. But . . . different kinds of people are required. 
The type of mind which will make a success of research 
is both logical and original. ... I am more and more im- 
pressed with the fact that the girl who wants to beat a 
man at his own game has to work hard to do it. I do not 
believe that this is because the man has any objection to 
women being chemists. I do not believe that men think 
they are necessarily better chemists than women. I have 
heard men give many reasons why they do not want women 
— any woman — in their laboratories. I never heard one 
mention that he thought they could not do the ordinary 
work. His objections are usually along the line that a 
laboratory is a dirty, unattractive place where hard work 
is done. Its natural inhabitants are men who smoke, and 
swear when things go wrong, and insist on such natural 
prerogatives of menfolks. They don't want women around 
because they will try to reform the place and make a par- 
lor of it. Once such suspicions are at rest, a man is usually 
ready to give a woman chemist a chance; but the woman 
who takes such a job must remember that she is an innova' 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 331 

tion, an experiment. . . . And how do chances for men 
and women compare? In a broad way, I should say that 
their chances are equal so far as purely chemical positions 
go. For a man, success in dealing with chemical problems 
may mean that he is taken out of the laboratory and put 
in charge of production in a plant. That is in the nature 
of the work out of the question for the woman." 

"Chemistry is splendid for some women, absolutely hope- 
less for others. To be a success in chemistry a woman 
must of course be perfectly honest. You cannot slide or 
bluff results in an exact science. She must not be afraid 
of negative results. She should by all means be trained 
in a good coeducational institution where she will get a 
good, thorough course in the theories of chemistry and 
wdll also be constantly with men and learn their ways of 
thinking and reasoning, because she will in almost every 
case have to deal with men entirely when she takes a po- 
sition. ... I have found that people who have had the 
experience of making their living . . . before entering into 
a permanent position as a chemist are more reasonable and 
better fitted to deal with others. . . . My work is a wonder- 
ful training for any one who would care to go back into 
teaching and make chemistry a 'liver' subject than it has 
ever been imagined before. Some day I may, but not yet." 

"My position will improve, because soon we are to have 
another assistant. It seems an extremely advantageous time 
for women to pursue chemistry. Recently I have heard of 
many opportunities for women in technical laboratories, 
whereas two years ago I heard of only two such positions. 
In my general education my chemistry has proved most 
helpful directly, mathematics indirectly. I regret that I 
have been unable to pursue graduate study of chemistry. 
. . . The employers seem generally to use the method of 
communicating with the colleges when in need of chemists 
or with the employment bureau of the Chemists' Club in 
New York." 

"For bacteriological work, a thorough scientific training 
in biology and chemistry is necessary. A Ph. D. is desirable, 
more so, I think, than an M. D. degree." 

Present scientific and technological opportunities for the 



332 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

young college graduate are illustrated by reports from Bar- 
nard, Mount Holyoke, Radcliffe, and Vassar Colleges, and 
the Margaret Morrison Carnegie School of the Carnegie 
Institute of Technology, as to the occupational distribution 
of the classes of 191 7 and 1918. The five institutions report 
thirty workers in chemistry; twenty-four in bacteriology, 
biology, and physiology; eighteen in engineering, drafting, 
and computing ; and six in applied physics. Seventeen chem- 
ists held industrial positions, of whom five were released 
from war industries after the armistice. Three were con- 
nected with the Mellon Institute for Industrial Research in 
Pittsburgh; one did war research on explosives in a uni- 
versity laboratory; three were in hospital or private diag- 
nostic and research health laboratories; five were teachers 
or laboratory assistants in college departments of chemistry ; 
one was teaching chemistry in a secondary school. Of 
the eight so-called engineers, four were working on switch- 
board specifications and problems for the General Electric 
Company, having been given a special course of training 
by the company; two were in the Western Electric Com- 
pany; and two were assistants in the engineering depart- 
ment of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, 
receiving training in the allied Western Electric Company. 
It is difficult to tell how much of their work is laboratory 
testing and research and how much is drafting and com- 
puting. It is likewise difficult to distinguish between en- 
gineering workers and workers in industrial physics. Of 
the three reported as draftsmen, two were employed in. 
the offices of the New York Central Railway Company, 
and one by the United States Bureau of Mines. Of the 
computers, seven were employed by the American Telephone 
and Telegraph Company or the Western Electric. Of the 
physicists, four were laboratory assistants in the Western 
Electric Company ; one was in the physical research labora- 
tory of a firm manufacturing tools ; two were in the Bureau 
of Standards of the federal Department of Commerce work- 
ing on thermal analysis and radio development respectively ; 
one was a lens inspector for the Signal Corps during the 
war, having received intensive training at the Bausch & 
Lomb factory and at the Bureau of Standards. 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 333 

Informal accounts of their work are graphic. A chemist 
says : "I have begun my career as an organic chemist in 

the synthetic chemistry department of the 

Company. . . . Our laboratory is the only one of its kind 
in the country, being composed entirely of girls with the 
exception of our director and his assistant. They are from 
various colleges and universities, such as Chicago, Bryn 
Mawr, Oberlin, and Vassar. . . . Our products are very 
valuable, and sold only in small quantities. Most of them 
have been Germany's exports until now." 

Another says : 'T am assistant to the chemist of a color 
works. I take great pleasure in analyzing the chemical 
compositions of colors and in striking 'laboratory batches.' 
I recently helped the company to get a big order from the 
Bureau of Engraving and Printing because I succeeded in 
matching a sample of purple submitted for making three- 
cent stamps." 

Another reports : *T am working with a dozen fellow 
chemists in the analytical department of a drug company. 
. . . We examine physically and chemically, and accept or 
reject, all materials purchased for manufacturing and all 
finished products of the company, and considering the fact 
that we put out 10,000 different preparations, we're busy." 

A bacteriologist in charge of the culture laboratory of a 
great museum of natural history says: '*We have a col- 
lection of some six hundred organisms of all kinds and 
varieties, pathogenic and non-pathogenic. Our work is first 
of all to keep these alive and in pure culture. Then upon 
request we send transfers of these to accredited schools and 
colleges and research laboratories. The rest of our work 
is on a research problem." 

A "switchboard engineer" says : "This tremendous cor- 
poration has 23,000 employees in these works alone. I work 
in a rather large office — the Switchboard Sales Department. 
Our work is both engineering and commercial, and consists 
principally of drawing specifications for switchboards to 
control all sorts of electrical apparatus, and then making 
an estimate on these specifications. There is a wide varia- 
tion between the different jobs which come into the office, 
from a proposition for a switchboard to control a small 



334 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

motor to requests for boards to control large power plants, 
railway terminals, or the electrical apparatus on a great 
battleship. ... So far, the company has been very generous 
in recognizing, financially and otherwise, any improvement 
on our part, and I feel that the chances for advancement 
are certainly as great as in any other line of business for 
any one who will stay in it." 

An engineering assistant in a telephone corporation says : 
"I plot curves, and I ink drawings, and I index millions of 
articles about radio-telegraphy and telephony for a card- 
catalogue, and I translate French articles about mercury arcs 
and the aidion, and I can use a slide-rule and a comp- 
tometer. . . . Three times a week the college girls in our 
department take a course in engineering at the Western 
Electric. In this way we are becoming better able to handle 
problems in telephone engineering and to apply our mathe- 
matics in correlation with electricity. About two months 
ago I was given an assistant to do my computing work." 

A physicist says : "1 have a position in the physical 
research laboratory of a hammer manufacturing company, 
breaking the company's precedent, as they have not had a 
woman in the laboratory before. I am learning so much 
(especially how little I know) that I am ashamed to be 
drawing a salary. My work is never uninteresting, being 
research." 

Another says : **I am working in the engineering depart- 
ment of the National Lamp Works. There are three other 
college girls doing work here, one from Vassar and two 
from Smith. . , . The work our section does is planning 
illumination 'layouts' for buildings of all kinds, street light- 
ing, designing and testing lamps, etc. I have been studying 
residence lighting — they thought it more suitable for a girl 
than street lighting." 

Still another says : *T am in the Bureau of Standards, 
where my own particular job is research on insulating 
materials when subjected to radio frequencies. ... I have 
been doing some airplaning lately. We have been working 
on some landing problems of the air mail service, and I 
benefit from the experimental part, and go aloft to receive 
signals from our home field." 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 335 

Computing work in industries and public utilities is a 
new opening for college women. But they have long been 
employed as astronomical computers in the leading ob- 
servatories of the country, such as the Harvard University 
Observatory, the United States Naval Observatory at 
Washington, the Yerkes Observatory of the University of 
Chicago, and the Lick and Wilson Universities in Califor- 
nia. This work requires at least full undergraduate train- 
ing in astronomy and closely related courses in mathematics. 
Laboratory work in physics and chemistry is also desirable, 
and, as in all sciences, a reading knowledge of foreign lan- 
guages on the technical side. Such work may lead to re- 
search positions in observatories, and is an invaluable 
experience for later teaching in college and university de- 
partments of astronomy, if combined with graduate work. 
Positions either at observatories or as teachers of astronomy 
are few in number. The science has several aspects — mathe- 
matical astronomy, astro-physics, stellar astronomy. Stellar 
photography is a field in which some women have spe- 
cialized. Observatory salaries are not high, comparing with 
those paid college assistants and instructors and ranging 
from about $1,200 to $1,500 or $1,800. The recent report 
on proposed reclassification of salaries in the federal civil 
service in Washington ^ provides six classes of general 
astronomical worker : astronomical computer ; chief astro- 
nomical computer; assistant astronomer; associate astrono- 
mer; astronomer; and senior astronomer — and five classes 
of mathematical astronomer: junior, assistant, and associ- 
ate mathematical astronomer ; mathematical and senior math- 
ematical astronomer. Salaries in both groups range from 
$1,200 to $5,040. Specifications for astronomical computer 
and associate mathematical astronomer are as follows : 

COMPUTER 

Duties : 

To perform under immediate supervision, routine re- 
ductions in astronomy; and to perform related work as 
required. 

Examples : Reducing transit circle, equatorial, prime 
^Report of Congressional Joint Commission. March 12, 1920. 



336 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

vertical, alt-azimuth, and photographic observations ; com- 
puting ephemerides and the orbits of asteroids and comets. 

Qualifications : 

Training equivalent to that represented by graduation 
from an institution of recognized standing, with major 
work in mathematics, mechanics, astronomy, and related 
subjects ; and ability to read scientific French or Ger- 
man, or an equivalent foreign language. 

Principal Lines of Promotion 

To: Assistant Astronomer, Chief Astronomical Com- 
puter. 

Compensation for Class 

Annual: $1,200, $1,320, $1,440, $1,560, $1,680, $1,800. 

ASSOCIATE MATHEMATICAL ASTBONOMER 

Duties : 

To perform, under general direction, either individually 
or with subordinates, specialized work in astronomical re- 
search which may or may not involve supervisory duties, 
but does not include the determination of policies ; and to 
perform related work as required. 

Examples : Revising tables of the sun, moon, and ma- 
jor planets ; making and revising star catalogues ; correct- 
ing elements of satellite orbits ; preparing data for eclipse 
and longitude expeditions; discussing the work of such 
expeditions. 
Qualifications : 

Training equivalent to that represented by graduation 
with a degree from an institution of recognized standing, 
with major work in mathematics, mechanics, and related 
subjects, by not less than three years' graduate work, and 
by at least five years* professional experience in mathe- 
matical astronomy ; proven ability to conduct or direct re- 
search work in mathematical astronomy; ability to read 
scientific French or German, or an equivalent foreign 
language ; and to prepare for publication, in clear and con- 
cise English, manuscripts embodying the results of re- 
search work in astronomy. 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 337 

Principal Lines of Promotion 

From: Assistant Mathematical Astronomer. 
To : Mathematical Astronomer, 

Compensation for Class 

Annual: $3,240, $3,360, $3,480, $3,600, $3,720, $3,840. 



Another field of applied science partially at least opened 
to women by the war is that of geology and the closely 
allied subjects of geography and map-making. In the past, 
the amount of field work required has been held to dis- 
qualify women, although a few are surmounting that diffi- 
culty ; and intimate relations with civil and mining engi- 
neering have made them peculiarly masculine professions. 
But the exact knowledge of topographical and geological 
formations essential to military operations and the recent 
development of new oil, gas, and coal fields have greatly 
increased the amount and importance of office and labora- 
tory work. In this country, we are just learning the mean- 
ing of geography as a science in the European sense. A few 
women with college training in geology and geography are 
being employed in the offices of oil companies and of petro- 
leum and mining engineers. As usual in a new field, they 
are expected to begin in a clerical or semi-clerical capacity. 
An expert engineer, who is also professor in a university 
school of mines, writes as follows : "It is quite true that 
women who major in geology in college have a vocational 
opportunity with coal and oil companies and experts in 
these fields. Also that a knowledge of stenography, type- 
writing, and also bookkeeping gives a decided advantage in 
getting a start in such positions. I have been seeking 
women of this type and have not been able to obtain any. 
. . . I know of six such workers in Oklahoma oil com- 
panies. The nature of the work so far has been to make 
what are called underground structure maps, using the data 
reported in the drilling of the wells, or in working on the 
appraisal of properties or on the rate of depletion in order 
to establish tax allowance. . . . Let me add some sugges- 



338 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

tions as to the selection of courses for such a person! 
physics, chemistry, geology, economics, accounting, stenog- 
raphy, typewriting, applied mathematics, graphics, statistics, 
filing/' ^ 

Outside of engineering firms and industrial corporations, 
opportunities are to be found in the federal Geological Sur- 
vey, Bureau of Mines, and possibly the Coast and Geodetic 
Survey, as well as in various state geological surveys and 
bureaus of mines. Government service is excellent train- 
ing either for later industrial work or for teaching in col- 
leges or certain secondary schools. 

In general, the specifications of the scientific, technical, 
and statistical services given in the Reclassification Report 
will prove illuminating and helpful to women looking for- 
ward to work of any of these types and also to those en- 
gaged in training them. The subdivisions of each field are 
notable. The sciences are grouped under the biological 
science service and the physical science service. The first 
includes specifications for different classes of agronomists, 
anthropologists, apiculturists, archeologists, general and soil 
bacteriologists, aquatic and general biologists, seed botanists, 
systematic botanists, plant ecologists, entomologists, ethnolo- 
gists, horticulturists, microanalysts, microbiologists, mycolo- 
gists, nematologists, ornithologists, parasitologists, insect and 
plant pathologists, plant physiologists, pomologists, zoolo- 
gists! The second includes besides astronomers and geol- 
ogists, chemists, metallurgists, meteorologists, physicists, 
and soil scientists. The engineering service includes twenty- 
three different types of engineer, from aeronautical to 
topographical.^ The statistical service is divided into me- 
chanical tabulation, statistical clerical work, and statistical 
science. In all these services, professional workers are 
ranked as juniors, assistants, associates, full workers, senior 
workers, and chiefs or directors. Scientific and technical 
"aids" need have only a high-school education, and are not 
ranked as professional. Salaries for junior workers are set 
at from $i,8cx) to $2,160; for assistants, from $2,400 to $3,- 
000; for associates, from $3,240 to $3,840; for full workers, 

^ See Report of Committee of Engineering Council on Classifica- 
tion and Compensation of Engineers (Pamphlet, 1919)- 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 339 

from $4,140 to $5,040. Salaries for senior workers and for 
chiefs are determined individually. While this report has 
not yet been adopted by Congress, it is based on careful 
study of current practices, and reorganization of govern- 
ment services is likely to follow the lines here laid down. 
Under existing conditions there are great variations in 
both titles and pay in the different departments of the fed- 
eral government. A number of women have held scientific 
and technical positions under the government. Since No- 
vember 5, 1919, all civil service examinations have been 
open to them, although appointing officers may specify 
whether they wish a man or a woman. Candidates for pro- 
fessional positions under Civil Service are usually not re- 
quired to present themselves for examination, but are rated 
upon sworn statements regarding their education and 
experience and sometimes upon brief written theses sub- 
mitted. To be put upon an eligible list by no means involves 
receiving an appointment ; but conditions are becoming more 
favorable to the appointment of women, and those who are 
thoroughly equipped will do well to qualify. Present sal- 
aries compare with those paid in colleges and schools. Dur- 
ing 1919, examinations were announced for junior chemist 
at a salary ranging from $1,200 to $1,400 a year and requir- 
ing college graduation with a major in chemistry; associ- 
ate chemist at a salary ranging from $1,800 to $2,500 and 
requiring a Ph.D. degree taken in one of eight specified 
fields of chemistry; physicist at a salary ranging from 
$2,000 to $2,800 and requiring a master's degree, with at 
least three years' work in physics and in mathematics 
through elementary differential equations; assistant plant 
pathologist at a salary ranging from $1,620 to $2,040 and 
requiring college graduation with special courses in plant 
pathology and a year's experience in research or teaching; 
research assistant in agricultural geography at a salary 
ranging from $1,500 to $2,000 and requiring college gradua- 
tion with special courses in economics or agricultural ge- 
ography, a reading knowledge of two modern languages, 
and at least a year in economic, statistical, or geographical 
research; juniqr engineer. Grade L (civil, electrical, me- 
chanical, signal, structural, telegraph and telephone) at a 



340 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

salary ranging from $1,320 to $1,680 and requiring profes- 
sional school graduation and a year's experience; assistant 
engineer of tests, at a per diem rate, requiring graduation 
from a mechanical engineering course with research work 
on strength of materials, particularly of steels, copper, and 
their alloys ; assistant and associate technologist at salaries 
ranging from $1,400 to $1,800 and from $2,000 to $2,800 re- 
spectively and requiring experience in either rubber, leather, 
paper, or textile technology and general physics, chemistry, 
and mathematics ; assistant valuation engineer and valua- 
tion engineer at salaries ranging from $2,500 to $3,600 and 
from $3,600 to $4,800 respectively, and requiring ability to 
estimate the value of mineral, or oil and gas, or timber, and 
the cost of the utilization and exploitation of such natural 
resources and the completion of professional courses in 
engineering, geology, or forestry. Similar openings exist 
under state and city civil service and in argicultural ex- 
periment stations. 

Drafting, apart from engineering, architecture, or geology, 
is a skilled trade or a sub-profession rather than a pro- 
fession proper. But in one or another of its many forms, 
it is a useful tool for women of good education who wish 
to gain a foothold in the technical sides of government 
service or of industry. Drafting is based on a sound knowl- 
edge of mechanical drawing; and draftsmen are of many 
varieties — aeronautical, architectural, commercial, electri- 
cal, mechanical, ship and boat, structural, topographical and 
hydrographical. ^ 

Opportunities for scientifically trained women are increas- 
ing in public and private health laboratories with the growth 
of the public health movement. Chemists, bacteriologists, 
and pathologists are thus employed. Much of the work is 
routine testing and analysis, and there is a tendency to use 
women without advanced scientific training as "laboratory 
technicians." But some of the state departments of public 
health, such as that of New York, have been taking on 

*See Report on Classification and Compensation of Engineers, 
Engineering Council (1919), under sub-professional service; also, 
Drafting. Opportunity Monograph. Federal Board for Vocational 
Education (1919)- 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 341 

young college women with good preparation in undergrad- 
uate science as apprentices in training; and the schools of 
public health, such as the new School of Hygiene and Pub- 
lic Health of Johns Hopkins University, and the depart- 
ments at Harvard and Yale, are preparing women for the 
degrees of bachelor, master, or doctor of public health. 
There is a difference of opinion as to whether these women 
should also have a medical degree. For the present, at 
least, it is probably an advantage in their dealings with 
physicians. The Johns Hopkins school arranges with the 
medical school for the conferring of both degrees in five 
years. It offers six research fellowships with a stipend of 
$1,000. One or two women doctors have been city health 
officers, and a woman doctor is first assistant director of 
the great research laboratories of the New York City De- 
partment of Health. She has charge of three of the seven 
divisions of the Bureau of Laboratories, and has done dis- 
tinguished bacteriological research. A few women have 
specialized as anesthetists and roentgenologists. Here, too, 
the medical degree is necessary for an assured status. An 
occasional woman has become an expert in medical illus- 
trating and modeling. 

In other scientific fields, women hold positions in museums 
of natural history; in forest products laboratories, such as 
that at the University of Wisconsin ; as seed analysts in 
large seed companies ; as textile analysts in a few mail-order 
houses and large department stores. One woman at least 
is food inspector and tester in a great hotel. There are 
surprisingly few women chemists in the laboratories of food- 
products companies, but they are being increasingly em- 
ployed in nutrition laboratories.^ 

With the growing opportunities for women in the sciences 
and technologies, there are certain considerations to keep in 
mind: (i) The necessity of mathematics as an adjunct, 
including a knowledge of calculus and preferably some 

* See Vocational Information. Leland Stanford Junior University 
Bulletin under Science and Applied Science. Vocations for Busi- 
ness and Professional Women, under Scientific Work. 



342 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

training in statistical method. Ability to use the comptome- 
ter and the slide-rule is a great advantage; (2) The im- 
portance of a scientific reading knowledge of modern lan- 
guages; (3) The value of command of a related science. 
In industrial and engineering positions, chemistry, and phys- 
ics are often needed; in health, food, and nutrition labora- 
tory work, chemistry, bacteriology, and physiology; (4) 
The desirability for scientific workers in industry, govern- 
ment service, or public health, of an understanding of eco- 
nomic, industrial, and social conditions and problems. Pre- 
professional courses in these subjects should be taken in 
college; (5) The fact that if women are tO' win full pro- 
fessional status in these fields, they must not rest content 
with intensive courses provided by the industries or agencies 
themselves, invaluable as these are, but must secure thorough 
training of a graduate character in the best professional 
schools available. These are more and more cooperating 
with industries and other organizations in the giving of field 
and shop practice. 

Facilities for advanced scientific and technological train- 
ing are open to women in practically all coeducational insti- 
tutions ; but hitherto only a handful have availed themselves 
of them. In many, it is true, they have not been encouraged, 
and their subsequent careers have been regarded with indif- 
ference. A western school of mines replied to our inquiry: 
"We have only two women graduates. We have no infor- 
mation with regard to the work they have done." On the 
other hand, the dean of the College of Civil Engineering of 
Cornell University writes: "Up to the present time, but 
one young lady has ever graduated from here^ — in 1905. At 
the present time we have three young ladies pursuing our 
regular four-year course. In my mind there is no doubt 
but what office work in particular in engineering can be done 
by women as well as by men if they have a reasonably good 
training in mathematics." ^ 

Women should more largely apply for scientific, indus- 

* See S. C. R. Mann. A Study of Engineering Education (1918), 
Bulletin No. 11, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of 
Teaching. Vocational Information. Leland Stanford Junior Uni- 
versity Bulletin, under Engineering. 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 343 

trial, and technical fellowships for which they can qualify. 
Many industries maintain such fellowships at the larger 
universities ; others exist on various foundations. The Na- 
tional Research Council in Washington is awarding fellow- 
ships for advanced research, and serves as an information 
bureau regarding such opportunities and all matters relat- 
ing to scientific developments and applications. In 1919 
the American Association for the Advancement of Science 
made a grant to a woman for a piece of research on the 
mortality statistics of college women. The Sarah BerHner 
Research Fellowship in science of the value of $1,000 is 
exclusively for women, and is adm.inistered by the Associa- 
tion of Collegiate Alumnae. Women should seek member- 
ship in appropriate scientific and technical societies. 

Positions are commonly secured through the colleges and 
professional schools and through application to organiza- 
tions known to favor the employment of women. Occa- 
sionally, advertisement in scientific or technical journals 
brings results. In chemistry, registration with the employ- 
ment bureau of the Chemists' Club in New York is ad- 
visable. 



The extraordinary development in recent years of labora- 
tory and observational psychology and its applications in the 
fields of education, delinquency, health and social services, 
commerce and industry, advertising and publicity, warrant 
its inclusion in a chapter devoted to the professional aspects 
of the sciences and technologies. This development has 
followed two main lines : the devising of mental tests and 
ratings of various sorts and the study of the concrete mani- 
festations and bases of human behavior, especially on its 
abnormal side. The first originated chiefly in the testing 
of children by the Binet-Simon intelligence scale; the sec- 
ond has a biological background, and represents contribu- 
tions from both psychologists and psychiatrists, the medical 
practitioners dealing with mental diseases. These two some- 
what unsympathetic groups are finding common ground in 
a modified Freudian psychology and in a constructive pro- 
gram for mental hygiene. Together they are coming tO' see 



344 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

that the psychological problem is not merely the degree of 
mentality, subnormal, normal, and supernormal, but also 
the kind of mentality — emotional and conduct stability, psy- 
chopathic trends, and the like. The army mental tests fur- 
nished a survey on a nation-wide scale of the distribution of 
persons of subnormal, average, and superior intelligence;^ 
the treatment of "shell-shock" or "war-psychoses," the first 
large-scale popular demonstration of the principles of mod- 
ern psychiatry and mental hygiene. The results of both are 
being applied to many pressing social and economic prob- 
lems. Some understanding of these movements is coming 
to be expected of every professional worker, and there is 
bound to be an increasing demand for workers soundly 
trained in the principles and techniques of psychology and 
psychopathology. 

Of the various appHcations of psychology, the mental 
testing of school children is the oldest, beginning with the 
negative purpose of removing the feeble-minded from reg- 
ular classes in which they were only a hindrance and put- 
ting them into special classes or institutions,^ but developing 
into a positive study of their capacities, and leading to the 
grouping of children of all grades of intelligence and to 
special methods for the exceptionally bright as well as for 
the exceptionally dull Many city school systems now main- 
tain psychological departments and psychological clinics. The 
first agency of the kind was established in 1898 by Professor 
Lightner Witmer of the Department of Psychology of the 
University of Pennsylvania. In other cities, school children 
are examined and tested at independent clinics u^der various 
auspices — in New York, for instance, at the Neurological 
Institute and the Cornell Clinic of Psychopathology; in 
Louisville, Kentucky, in the psychological clinic recently 
estabHshed jointly by the board of education and the feder- 
ated social agencies. This clinic examines both superior and 
inferior children for admission to special classes. In some 
cities clinics are combined with school vocational bureaus, 

* See C. E. Yoakum and R. M. Yerkes. Army Mental Tests 
(1920). Mental Hygiene. Passim 1918 — . 

'See Leta S. Hollingworth. The Psychology of Subnormal 
Children ( 1920) . 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 345 

as in Cincinnati, where Dr. Helen Bradford Woolley has 
made notable studies in the vocational psychology of 
young people. Psychological clinics have also long been 
maintained at such well-knov^n schools for the feeble-minded 
as those at Waverley, Massachusetts, and Vineland, New- 
Jersey. A more recent development is the establishment of 
school clinics in mental hygiene and the instruction of teach- 
ers and parents in its principles, as has been done in Balti- 
more by Dr. C. MacFie Campbell of Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity, now of the Harvard Medical School, and in 
Worcester by Prof. William T. Burnham of Clark Univer- 
sity. The new realization of the importance of the mental 
and emotional experiences of childhood as determining 
mental health throughout life make this a field of work that 
demands extension and continuous study.^ It is still in its 
infancy. 

Psychologists are also attached to state and city boards 
and bureaus dealing with juveniles. Ohio has established 
a juvenile research bureau with a psychological staff. Wis- 
consin has a psychologist on its state department of educa- 
tion. Child welfare institutions and agencies of every sort 
are seeking psychological assistance. 

A special type of psychological work with minors has 
been that of the juvenile court and institutions for juvenile 
delinquents. In this field. Dr. William Healy, long director 
of the psychological laboratory of the Chicago juvenile court 
and now director of the Judge Baker Foundation in Boston, 
has been a distinguished leader. His work on the juvenile 
delinquent shows the intimate relations of mental defect and 
disorder to the whole matter of delinquency. ^ A number of 
juvenile courts now have psychologists attached to them. 

The demonstration through mental tests that mental and 
physical or chronological age often do not coincide, and that 
a seeming adult may have a mind of twelve years or less, 
has led to the application of these tests to delinquents, de- 
pendents, and unadjusted adults of all kinds, and especially 

^See Dr. William A. White. The Mental Hygiene of Child- 
hood (1919). 

^The Individual Delinquent (1915) ; Mental Conflicts and Miscon- 
duct (1917). 



34<5 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

to wayward, border-line, or delinquent women and girls, 
who are a peculiar menace to society. Psychologists are 
attached to courts, prisons, and reformatories, to state prison 
commissions and boards of probation and parole, to pro- 
tective leagues, social and mental hygiene associations. With 
adults, as with children, it is coming to be seen clearly that 
adequate handling of the situation requires the cooperation 
of the psychologist, the psychiatrist, and the mental hygiene 
or psychiatric social worker. 

This new type of social worker is described in Chapter V. 
As yet, she is more commonly trained in social work than 
in psychology; but one of the most successful women in 
this field is a doctor of philosophy in psychology ; and sound 
modern psychological training is likely to become a requi- 
site. Psychiatrists also lack training in psychology, and 
are consequently too much inclined to consider the abnormal 
apart from the normal. But plans are now on foot for 
providing some training in both psychology and psychiatry 
for all medical students and simple, practical courses in 
psychology and psychopathology in schools of social work 
and nursing. Psychologists as well as psychiatrists are at- 
tached to the staffs of mental and psychopathic hospitals. 
In fact, every institution or organization concerned with the 
care of the sick needs an expert in psychology and mental 
hygiene, since all forms of disease and injury have their 
special mental and emotional aspects. This has been recog- 
nized by the War Department and the Red Cross, which 
have employed psychiatric social workers not only with 
mental cases proper but with other injured soldiers. The 
Red Cross has sent workers to the Smith School and other 
schools. 

The most recent applications of psychology are in the field 
of occupations and employment. "Personnel" or "employ- 
ment" psychology has to do especially with the devising of 
tests and techniques to determine special aptitudes, training, 
and fitness for employment and promotion, under the aus- 
pices of personnel or employment departments, as described 
in Chapter XI.^ In the larger sense, occupational or voca- 

*See Henry C. Link. Employment Psychology (1919). Per- 
sonnel System of the U. S. Army. Two vols. (1919). 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 347 

tional psychology touches many sides of educational and 
social work : vocational guidance, vocational education, 
*iabor turnover," and so on. Specific vocational tests are 
more difficult tO' devise than "general intelligence" tests, and 
have not been so satisfactorily worked out. There is a 
tendency to rely more upon objective ''performance" or 
"trade" tests than upon psychological tests proper.^ There 
are still many problems to be dealt with in the psychology 
of professions and other occupations. But active research 
is going on in the entire field. With regard to industrial 
and other occupational maladjustments, hopeful beginnings 
of investigation have been made under the auspices of the 
Boston Psychopathic Hospital and the Engineering Founda- 
tion. Industrial mental hygiene clinics are advocated. Much 
more needs to be known regarding both the external con- 
ditions and the psychology of occupations before "vocational 
guidance" can be put on a sound basis. It has been too 
often a matter of pious hope or of blind acceptance of 
things as they are industrially. 

The applications of psychology to educational problems 
have long been a matter of theory, if not of practice. The 
fault has lain largely with the type of psychology oifered. 
The newer psychology is making them effectual and valu- 
able. The uses of psychology in advertising, publicity, and 
salesmanship have been admirably pointed out and acted 
upon.2 The psychologist is coming to be a cooperating or 
consulting expert in practically all fields of social endeavor. 
He — or frequently she — assists the teacher, the judge, the 
doctor, the social worker, the employer, and the employed. 
"Americanization" work needs psychologists who are spe- 
cialists in the psychology of racial groups and racial rela- 
tions. Health centers should include psychological and 
mental hygiene clinics, thus dissipating the distrust still 
felt for such clinics when under the auspices of mental hos- 
pitals or boards. 

Field workers in eugenics, who are trained chiefly at 

*See Henry C. Link. Employment Psychology (1919). Per- 
sonnel System of the U. S. Army. Two vols. (1919). 

'See Walter Dill Scott, Psychology of Advertising (1913). Harry 
A. Hollingwbrth. Advertising and Selling (1913). 



348 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

the Eugenics Record Office of the Carnegie Station for Ex- 
perimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, 
need a foundation in psychology as well as in zoology, since 
their work iconsists chiefly in securing fanyly histories and 
data regarding the inmates of mental hospitals and institu- 
tions for the feeble-minded. 

The present interest in "mental tests" sometimes leads 
people to think that the planning and giving of such tests 
is the only work of the psychologist. It is important to 
remember that testing is one among many psychological 
techniques and fields. The person specializing in this work 
is known as a psychological examiner. A Report on the 
Qualifications of Psychological Examiners has been pre- 
pared by a committee of the American Psychological Asso- 
ciation, ^ and plans are under way for the certification by 
the Association of two grades of examiners: (i) those with 
the Ph.D. degree and (2) those with but one year of gradu- 
ate work. There is an Association of Clinical Psycholo- 
gists ; and a few women with this training are in independ- 
ent practice. In so^ new and so easily exploited a field, there 
is bound to be a "charlatan fringe," and psychologists them- 
selves, if not the state, are likely to devise some form of 
regulating such practitioners. Psychiatrists are very wary 
of the non-medical "psycho-analyst." 

No psychologist at this juncture can afford professional 
training other than the best. Undergraduate courses, even 
those including laboratory work and training in testing, are 
sufficient only for routine or subordinate positions. Some- 
times a year or so of work of this type enables a young 
woman to give direction to her graduate study. The woman 
looking forward to a professional career as a psychologist' 
should plan to secure a doctor's degree from one of the uni- 
versities which are leaders in this field. In certain types 
of work, she may find it advantageous also to have a medical 
degree. Workers intending to specialize in vocational guid- 

^ Psychological Monograph Series (1921). See also J. E. W. 
Wallin. The Field of the Clinical Psychologist and the Kind of 
Training Needed by the Psychological Examiner. School and So- 
ciety. April 19, 1919. Vocational Information. Leland Stanford 
Junior University Bulletin, under Psychological Examiner, 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 349 

ance, mental hygiene, social work, personnel work, or 
teaching should have at least the psychological equipment 
represented by the master's degree, supplemented by courses 
in psychiatric social work, employment management, educa- 
tion, and so on. Undergraduate courses in social economy, 
biology, history, and government are an important pre- 
professional foundation. 

Positions in psychology are at present most commonly 
secured through the institutions and departments in which 
a worker has studied. These include teaching and labora- 
tory positions in colleges, and normal schools, which are 
becoming more numerous and often afford opportunity 
for further research. Direct application sometimes brings 
results, if done with knowledge of the field. There are civil 
service examinations for psychologists in some of the states 
for positions in state institutions or departments. 

Seven psychologists filled our schedules, and certain col- 
leges supplied information regarding graduates of 191 7 and 
1918 in psychological work. Salaries reported ranged from 
$1,200 to $3,000 with a median salary of $2,100. Six out 
of the seven psychologists have the doctor's degree; the 
other has a master's degree. Two are professors of psy- 
chology in universities. One of these has been clinical 
psychologist in a large hospital, and still gives some time to 
the work. The other has been director of an experimental 
psychological laboratory in connection with a reformatory 
for women, and was attached to the division of psychology 
of the Surgeon General's Office during the war. Two are 
connected with city departments of education, one as di- 
rector of a vocational bureau ; the other as assistant director 
of a department of child study. One is chief psychologist 
in a large state school for the feeble-minded; one gives 
mental tests to school children in a state bureau of juvenile 
research; one is social service director of a state mental 
hygiene committee, doing special work with children. 

Comments are as follows : '*Do not consider for a mo- 
ment a career in psychology without full professional equip- 
ment. Be sure that you have the innate capacity for suc- 
cess in a professional career. Take a doctor's degree in 
psychology. This means three years of training beyond the 



350 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

B.A. degree. . . . From thirty to forty women consult me 
each year about entering upon a career in psychology. There 
are, in general, two discouraging features in these consulta- 
tions. In the first place, there are always some who are 
not fitted to enter upon a professional career of any kind. 
Either they lack ability, are unfortunate in personality, or 
are past the age for beginning. ... In the second place, 
there is an invincible amateurishness in the viewpoint of 
many, a desire to 'take up' something which can be learned 
in a year, and which will thereafter give them position and 
income. Very few seem willing to face real professional 
training as a sine qua non of a professional career in psy- 
chology. They labor under the erroneous impression that 
there must be some way of obtaining the rewards without 
paying the price of thorough preparation. This fatal ten- 
dency to fall short of what is necessary to success is due 
largely, in my judgment, to the uncertainty which women 
feel about choosing between (or possibly combining) mar- 
riage and vocation." 

*T would advise the highest possible training in psychol- 
ogy, pedagogy, and child hygiene; practical experience in 
institutions for defectives ; conservative use of diagnosis ; 
and keeping in constant touch with new experimental (not 
applied) findings, as well as with clinical developments." 

Two women's colleges report eleven of their graduates of 
1917 and 1918 in psychological work. Of these, three are 
college laboratory assistants ; two are in the vocational bu- 
reau of a city school system; two are giving psychological 
tests in hospital clinics ; one is psychological assistant in a 
state children's bureau; one is research worker in a state 
school for the feeble-minded ; one is experimental psycholo- 
gist in a life insurance company; one is assistant psycholo- 
gist in a department store. 

One worker says : **A11 last year I was a laboratory as- 
sistant at the psychological laboratory of the vocational 
bureau of the board of education. We tested children for 
the special classes of the public schools — classes for de- 
fectives, for the backward, for the slow in learning to read, 
and rapidly moving classes for the brilliant. We also did 
psychological examining for the social agencies and for any 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 351 

one else who wanted it done. Boys are brought because 
they play hookey from school ; girls because they lose their 
tempers or like to stay out late. We also examine and try 
to advise many economic misfits." 

Statistical services may be briefly treated, although they 
are becoming increasingly important in all fields, in indus- 
try and commerce, in life insurance, in public utilities, as 
well as in economics, the sciences, and education. It is be- 
coming fashionable for workers to call themselves "statis- 
ticians," and there is need to emphasize the difference be- 
tween statistical clerks, who make routine tabulations and 
computations under direction, and statisticians proper. Only 
the latter are to be considered professional workers, al- 
though a woman of good education may profitably serve a 
"sub-professional" apprenticeship as a statistical clerk, and 
has an advantage if she is familiar with the operation of 
tabulating and punching machines. Familiarity with the 
techniques of "graphics" — the making of graphs and charts 
— is also valuable.^ 

The Reclassification Report, as has been said, divides gov- 
ernment statistical service into (i) mechanical tabulation, 
(2) statistical clerical work, and (3) statistical science. To 
illustrate the distinction between clerical and professional 
statistical work specifications are quoted for senior statisti- 
cal clerk and for associate statistician. 

SENIOR STATISTICAL CLERK (Agriculture, Finance, 
Transportation) . 

Duties : 

Under supervision, to perform one or more of the fol- 
lowing functions: (i) To supervise a small statistical 
clerical subdivision performing a single process or group 
of simple related processes, according to general plans 
and instructions laid down by an official superior; (2) To 
perform statistical clerical work demanding a knowledge 
of the subject matter and the exercise of statistical judg- 
ment; — and to perform other related work. 

* See Allan C. Haskell. Hozv to Make and Use Graphic Charts 
(1919). Willard C. Brinton. Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts 
(1914). 



352 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Examples: Examining complicated reports, schedules, 
and other papers to determine their accuracy and to pre- 
pare them for tabulation ; making, independently, ordinary 
computations of averages, medians, and rates, including, 
when necessary, the use of computing machines, verify- 
ing tables where the process requires not only checking 
the accuracy of the copying and compiling of the figures, 
but their proper selection, combination, and tabulation. 
Common Qualifications: 

Training equivalent to that represented by graduation 
from high school; not less than two years' experience 
in statistical clerical work, or one year's such experience 
and the completion of an elementary course in statistical 
methods in an institution of recognized standing; famil- 
iarity with adding, computing, and tabulating machines, 
slide rules, and other labor-saving devices used in statis- 
tical clerical work; abiHty to plan ordinary table forms 
and to write explanatory notes ; accuracy, neatness, rapid- 
ity, and mental alertness. 
Special Qualifications: 

For each class in the group, thorough clerical knowl- 
edge of the subject matter to which the statistics involved 
relate, as indicated by the title of that class. 

Principal Lines of Promotion 

From: Junior Statistical Clerk. 
To : Principal Statistical Clerk. 

Compensation for Classes in Group 

Annual: $1,620, $1,680, $1,740, $1,800. 
ASSOCIATE STATISTICIAN 

Duties : 

To direct minor statistical inquiries along lines already 
established, wherein matters of policy regarding organiza- 
tion and management do not frequently arise or are de- 
cided by or on the advice of an administrative superior, 
and where the technique and methods of analysis have 
been standardized; under general direction, to supervise 
the conduct of a minor investigation or part of a major 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 353 

investigation, and to originate and suggest to administra- 
tive superiors plans of organization, management, tech- 
nique, and methods of analysis ; to carry on, independent- 
ly, or with assistants, statistical research not demanding 
at the outset broad and intensive knowledge of the subject 
or related subjects ; and to perform related work as re- 
quired. 

Examples : Under general direction, supervising the 
regular collection and tabulation of statistics, and analyz- 
ing the results thereof relating to union wages, whole- 
sale prices, or to the production of cotton, truck, or other 
special crops ; planning and advising in respect to, and 
analyzing the results of censuses of important industries, 
such as iron and steel, or textiles ; preparing statistical 
memoranda or reports or sections or chapters in impor- 
tant statistical publications involving thorough individual 
research. 

Qualifications : 

Training equivalent to that represented by graduation 
with a degree from an institution of recognized standing, 
and by at least three years' graduate study in the field 
of economics, sociology, political science, statistics, mathe- 
matics, or other related subjects; and either not less than 
two years' experience in statistics or related social sciences 
or success in independent original statistical, economic, or 
sociological research, as shown by writings and publica- 
tions. 

Principal Lines of Promotion 

From: Assistant Statistician. 
To: Statistician. 

Compensation for Class » 

Annual : $3,240, $3,360, $3,480, $3,600, $3,720, $3,840. 

Advanced training in statistics is more and more in terms 
of special fields — vital statistics, educational statistics, social 
statistics, economic and industrial statistics.^ Even the ele- 

* See Melvin T. Copeland. Business Statistics (1917), J. George 
Frederick. Business Research and Statistics (1920). Horace Sc- 
crist. An Introduction to Statistics (1919) and Readings and Prob- 
lems in Statistical Methods (1920). 



354 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

nientary college courses, usually given under the depart- 
ments of economics and mathematics, while they give a 
survey of all types of data which may be treated statistically, 
tend to assign statistical problems to students in the field 
of their major subjects. Opportunities for field work and 
apprentice work are beginning to be found in some of the 
great insurance, public utility, and other commercial and 
industrial organizations. The American Statistical Asso- 
ciation is the professional society. Positions are secured 
through civil-service examinations, through bureaus of oc- 
cupations, or through direct application. The true statis- 
tician, as distinct from the statistical clerk, is problem- 
minded as well as fact-minded, capable of planning investi- 
gations, devising effective tabulations, and interpreting re- 
sults. He belongs to professional associations, and pub- 
lishes statistical articles. 

Advance information regarding eleven women engaged 
wholly or partly in statistical work, received from the Bu- 
reau of Vocational Information, ^ shows a salary range of 
from $1,400 to $5,000, with a median salary of $2,400. 
Only one salary reported is below $2,000. Of these women, 
one has a doctor's degree in economics and sociology; two 
have the master's degree; four have the bachelor's degree 
with special professional training of at least a year; two 
are without degrees, but have taken courses at a normal 
school, a university, and a college of law respectively. Three 
are employed by the federal government, of whom one is 
head of a division in the Bureau of Internal Revenue ; one is 
in the Bureau of the Census, and one is in the Port and Zone 
Transportation Office in New York. Three are with sta- 
tistical and research organizations ; one is with a philan- 
thropic foundation; one is a statistical and economic 
research worker for the Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion, one is head of the department of statistics and investi- 
gation of an advertising company, one is with a silk manu- 
facturing company, one assistant in the safety engineering 
department of a great chemical company, one is head of 
the research department of a great labor union. Several 
receiving the highest salaries had important statistical ex- 

* See Statistical Work for Women. Bulletin No. 2 (1921). 



TECHNICAL SERVICES 355 

perience during the war with the War Industries Board, the 
Shipping Board, and the Food Administration. One has 
done responsible work for the New York City Board of 
Estimate and Apportionment. Several say that women re- 
ceive as much as fifty per cent lower salaries than men, and 
are seldom employed in executive positions. One says that 
the best positions are to be found imder the government 
or "on the Street." One advises statisticians to do a certain 
amount of their own tabulating in order to keep in personal 
touch with the data. Statisticians are frequently employed 
on a *'piece-work" basis, in connection with surveys and 
other special investigations. 

Three women statisticians filling our schedules in 1918 
and 1919 reported salaries of $1,500, $1,800, and $2,400. 
One is statistician for a national medical and health organi- 
zation; one is administrative assistant to a statistical execu- 
tive in the Shipping Board; one was chief of the section 
on war industries abroad of the Wa^ Industries Board, and 
assisted in preparing a report on international price com- 
parisons, part of a history of prices during the war. Two 
are college graduates, one with a master's degree and one 
with a secretarial course at Simmons College; one has had 
special university courses in statistics. None of them is 
much over thirty. 

One says : *Tt would seem to me that a year's statistical 
work in government service is invaluable in learning sources 
and methods. I believe that a woman will advance farthest 
if she decides in what field she will apply her statistical 
knowledge, and does not consider statistics as ends in them- 
selves." 

Another says : "My chief prefers women to men in sta- 
tistical work, other than in important executive positions. I 
should advise women to take as much training as possible, 
of course, to have a liking for work and a willingness to 
work until all hours. A letter from an influential college 
instructor carries more weight than college credits, and a 
recommendation from a satisfied employer is worth any 
number of courses in training. Women are not a good in- 
vestment. They are too apt to marry." 



CHAPTER XVIII 

LIBRARY AND MUSEUM SERVICES 

Libraries and museums have, broadly speaking, a com- 
mon purpose : the procuring, housing, arranging, and render- 
ing accessible of materials for the information, aesthetic sat- 
isfaction, or recreation of the community or some of its 
component groups. Both deal with spatial objects, and have 
developed techniques of purchase, storage, classification, 
and identification. Both are giving increased attention to 
methods of exhibition and instruction. While the library is 
far in advance of the museum in the active distribution and 
circulation of its collections among the people, the museum 
is moving in this direction as far as the nature of museum 
objects permits. Both institutions are fundamentally edu- 
cational, and in the most enlightened instances are close 
students of their publics, allying themselves with other com- 
munity agencies of an educational character and making 
active efforts to reach and serve groups of different ages, 
races, occupations, and interests. They are thus centers of 
educational cooperation and publicity, and perform a social 
service the importance of which we are only coming to 
realize. 

Compared with the learned professions and with teaching, 
librarianship is a young profession, dating back not more 
than thirty years. Like teaching it suffers from containing 
within its ranks many untrained or partially trained workers 
whose presence blurs professional standards and lowers the 
whole scale of professional salaries. There is an active 
movement among librarians at present looking to some sys- 
tem of professional standardization and certification. On 
the other hand, like most occupations that have struggled to 
achieve professional status, librarianship has been not un- 

356 



LIBRARY AND MUSEUM SERVICES 357 

fairly accused of a certain stiffness and overemphasis of 
mere techniques to the neglect of more fundamental pro- 
fessional characteristics. ^ This criticism has already an 
archaic ante-bellum sound. What the War Service Com- 
mittee of the American Library Association did for our 
soldiers and sailors at home and overseas, in cantonments 
and rest areas, on transports and on warships, is a noble 
record. What it did for the library profession in the way 
of increased flexibility and simpHfying of methods and un- 
derstanding of American young people and hearty com- 
munity cooperation for definite ends, only the coming years 
will reveal. Since the end of the war, the Association has 
been conducting an active campaign to recruit young men 
and young women for librarianship, to raise salary stand- 
ards, and to extend free public library facilities to the sixty 
million Americans which it estimates are now without 
them. 

In spite of their inadequacy, however, libraries are so 
widely diffused throughout the United States that librarian- 
ship, like teaching, may be considered a "constant" rather 
than a "variable" occupation, to use the terms of Dr. Leon- 
ard P. Ayres.2 Like teaching also, it is actually or 
practically a form of public service, since libraries are 
democratic institutions serving disinterestedly and impar- 
tially all elements in the community. Thirty-seven states 
have library commissions or state libraries with extension 
arrangements, to bring library facilities to country com- 
munities and to maintain common standards. These 
bodies have formed a League of Library Commissions. 
California and Indiana have especially good systems of 
county libraries. A banker of New York City has recently 
made a gift of eleven library buildings with a yearly in- 
come of a thousand dollars each on condition of an equal 
sum raised by taxation, for rural districts in northern 
New York. The new interest in rural problems makes the 
country library an institution of strategic importance, co- 

* See John Cotton Dana. The Changing Character of Libraries. 
Atlantic Monthly. April, 1918. 

* Constant and Variable Occupations in Bloomfield's Readings in 
Vocational Guidance (1914). 



35^ WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

operating with the schools, the county farm bureaus, the 
agencies for rural health, and so on. Hitherto the salaries 
paid have been too small for such libraries to command 
professional librarians ; before long the state may see its 
way to supplementing local library funds. Motor vans are 
making a traveling library service possible. ^ 

The Board of Regents of the University of the State of 
New York, the state professional examining and licensing 
board, adopted in 1918 a system of grading and certifying 
high school librarians on principles analogous to those used 
with respect to teachers. The New York Library Associa- 
tion has drafted a plan for extending this system of stand- 
ardization and certification to public librarians in places 
with a population of 3,000 or over. It provides for four 
grades of certificate — life, five-year, three-year, and two- 
year, valid in communities of different sizes, and makes spe- 
cific requirements of general education, library training, and 
library experience. Various other states and the American 
Library Association have long been urging some such plan. 

Libraries may be classified as public, institutional, special, 
and private. There are a few cooperative libraries, open 
only to members. The great majority are public, controlled 
by boards of trustees and supported wholly or partially by 
taxation. The tendency among benevolent citizens to pre- 
sent communities with expensive library buildings without 
funds for their maintenance and operation is fortunately 
giving way to the realization that the best library is the one 
most actively administered and most actively supported by 
the community. Librarians are likely in the near future 
to follow the lead of teachers in asking for representation 
upon boards of library control. Institutional libraries are 
no longer limited to universities, colleges, and professional 
schools. The high school library is a recent growth full of 
vigor and of special appeal to librarians qualified to deal 
with growing boys and girls. Modern hospitals for physical 
and mental diseases recognize the library as of definite ther- 
apeutic value; and there is a special association of hospi- 
tal librarians. Other institutions — prisons, reformatories, 

* See Wallace Meyer. Setting Books in Motion. Survey, May 20, 
1920. 



LIBRARY AND MUSEUM SERVICES 359 

homes, settlements, maintain libraries as a necessary part of 
their equipment.^ 

The development of special libraries within compara- 
tively recent years has been amazing, and has been greatly 
accelerated by the w^ar. There is a Special Libraries Asso- 
ciation with an organ of its own, affiliated with the Ameri- 
can Library Association. The older institutions of this type 
are the professional and society libraries, such as those of 
law, medicine, theology, genealogy, history. More recent 
are technological libraries, social service libraries, libraries 
of art, architecture, and music, libraries of agriculture, li- 
braries of legislative and municipal reference, libraries of 
government departments. A still more recent development 
is the library of the industrial or commercial firm or corpo- 
ration. There are bank libraries, public utility libraries, 
insurance libraries, libraries in industrial plants, libraries in 
department stores. These are technical or service libraries, 
and include not so much books as periodicals, reports, cata- 
logues, pamphlets, bulletins, newspaper clippings, plans, 
blue-prints, photographs, graphs and charts, sometimes even 
samples and models. They may even include motion-picture 
films and gramophone records. They are carried on in close 
relations with research and pubHcity departments, and are 
filing and clipping services as well as libraries in the more 
usual sense. There is a growing number of independent 
information services or bureaus of this sort supplying sta- 
tistical, financial, industrial, and trade information in various 
fields. There is also a group of industrial or commercial 
research bureaus. Women librarians attracted to a special 
field or eager to learn of the world of aflPairs from the inside 
find good opportunities in special library work. But for 
the most part they need some antecedent experience in a 
general library and some acquaintance with the subject mat- 
ter of the field they wish to enter. 

The grovii:h of large fortunes in the United States has 
led to the collection of many fine private libraries, fre- 
quently along some special line of interest. Some of these 

* See F. R. Curtis. The Libraries of the American State and Na- 
tional Institutions for Defectives, Dependents, and Delinquents. 
University of Minnesota (1918). 



36o WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

contain rare manuscripts and early printed books, and even 
shade into collections of the smaller art objects. The most 
famous of these libraries is that collected by the senior 
J. Pierpont Morgan. In some cases professional librarians 
are in charge, and assist in adding to the collections. In 
other cases they are called in to prepare special catalogues. 
Such librarians must be bibliographical experts and biblio- 
philes. Positions of this sort are exceptional, and have their 
limitations as well as their advantages. But an assistantship 
in a private library, if the opportunity offered, might be in- 
valuable as training, even if it did not appeal as a permanent 
career. 

During the war many professional librarians were drafted 
into the service of government departments and of indus- 
tries working on government contracts, to install and direct 
large filing systems. Salaries paid were markedly higher 
than in library work; and the combined appeals of patriotism 
and the pocketbook led to a serious shortage of librarians. 
Many employers prefer women with library training as file 
managers or head file clerks ; and the distinction between a 
business librarian and a filing expert is in practice often 
difficult to make. But librarianship and filing seem to have 
certain techniques in common rather than any identity of 
subject matter and interest. The librarian proper is drawn 
toward the profession because of a genuine interest in 
books and in what books stand for in human life. The me- 
chanics of their arrangement and distribution are for him 
or her only the means to an end. In the earlier stages of 
the evolution of modern business filing, librarians were the 
only workers with a technique that could be easily adapted 
to the new requirements. But to-day there are filing ex- 
perts ; there are good filing schools and courses ; and the 
makers of office and filing equipment are constantly study- 
ing these matters and putting out books of instruction and 
advice. A recent excellent booklet of this sort, issued by 
the Library Bureau, is entitled : Filing as a Profession for 
Women; and there is at least one periodical devoted to the 
discussion of filing questions. Whatever its present claims to 
the title of a profession, we must admit that filing was only 
^ foster child of librarianship, and properly belongs with 



LIBRARY AND MUSEUM SERVICES 361 

the rapidly enlarging group of commercial techniques and 
professions. This stand was unequivocally taken in 1918 by 
the Association of American Library Schools, after a com- 
mittee had investigated the requirements of indexing and 
filing in government offices. It was voted that indexing and 
filing are not library work, and that special courses to train 
workers for such positions should not be given during the 
summer sessions of library schools, even in war-time. It is 
nevertheless true that the war-time demand upon librarians 
for these services has had important results in defining the 
standards of the profession and in raising library salaries 
at least toward an adequate professional level. 

Library workers are easily grouped as administrative and 
executive experts, as non-administrative experts, and as 
service-workers.^ The term ''apprentice" in this profession 
is limited to a worker receiving training in a large library 
rather than at a library school. Such apprentice training 
prepares for work in the given library better than it does 
for broader and more genuinely professional librarianship. 
On the other hand, the importance of supervised practice as 
a part of training is increasingly recognized in this as in 
other professions; and a year as a library ''interne" may 
soon be considered a requisite part of a library course. Too 
many library school graduates have been turned loose upon 
the smaller libraries better equipped to deal with catalogues 
than with people. 

Library administrators and executives include directors, 
"head librarians," as they are sometimes called, assistant 
directors, and those in charge of the several departments of 
a large library: heads of the catalogue, reference, and circu- 
lation departments, of the children's, art, medical, technologi- 
cal departments, and so on. They are experienced pro- 
fessional workers who plan policies, prepare budgets, select 
and supervise their staffs, and decide upon the choice and 
purchase of books and other equipment, all under the final 
authority of the library board. Most library directors hold 
periodic staff meetings. In this group fall also librarians 
of branch city libraries and traveling organizers and super- 
visors sent out by state library commissions. The non-ad- 

* See specifications of Massachusetts Librarian Group, pp. 49-52. 



362 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

ministrative group includes expert cataloguers and buyers, 
speciilists in rare books, in art, music, work with the blind, 
with foreigners, with children. Here, too, belong story- 
tellers for children, preparers of exhibits, and writers of 
special library bulletins, all workers having to do with the 
instructional and publicity side of the library. Service-work- 
ers include the younger librarians who are doing library 
woixc of one kind and another under supervision. They are 
frequently ''rotated" through the different departments to 
give them an understanding of the organization as a whole. 
In small libraries, of course, one or two people may perform 
all these various duties. There is much to be said for gen- 
eral experience in a library of this size. But every librarian 
should in addition become a specialist, either in some one 
library process or in the reading needs of some one group 
in the community. 

The librarian's work is often compared with the teacher's, 
and her longer hours, shorter vacations and frequently lower 
salary are dwelt upon. On the other hand, her responsibiH • 
ties are less concentrated and more diversified. She is under 
no such strain as that of the classroom; she comes into 
pleasant and friendly relations with all types and groups 
in the community, old and young; she has many small 
chances and some large ones to show quick-wittedness and 
ingenuity; she works with congenial people in attractive 
surroundings and in intimate contact with books and ideas. 
For those who care for both books and people, there is a 
steady satisfaction in bringing the two together. The dis- 
advantages in the way of salary are on the road to cor- 
rection. For librarians whose interests are chiefly scholarly 
and academic, there are positions in college and school li- 
braries ; for those who prefer the technical rather than the 
human sides of library work, there are positions as cata- 
loguers and expert tracers and buyers of books and other 
library materials. 

Full professional training for librarianship is increasingly 
secured through the recognized library schools, although 
certain public and university libraries maintain apprentice 
classes. Eleven schools make up the Association of Ameri- 
can Library Schools. Two, the New York State Library 



LIBRARY AND MUSEUM SERVICES 363 

School at Albany and more recently the University of Illi- 
nois Library School, require a college degree for admission ; 
one, the Department of Library Science of Simmons Col- 
lege, combines library training with a four years' college 
course. The other schools require a good general education 
with a reading knowledge of modern languages, and prefer 
an antecedent college course. The ordinary course is one 
or two years in length. It is gaining in flexibility and in 
contact with actual library practices and problems. There 
is still much to be learned in the way o^ library psychology, 
both urban and rural. A young woman considering library 
work as a profession will do well to serve as a student as- 
sistant in her college library and as an apprentice or assist- 
ant in some public library during a summer vacation or two 
of her undergraduate course. 

Graduates of library schools usually secure their first po- 
sitions at least through these schools. Government and 
sometimes public library positions are filled through civil- 
service examinations. Employers of special and business 
librarians sometimes turn to professional employment bu- 
reaus. In the newer types of library work direct applica- 
tion is often successful; but is somewhat wasteful of time 
and effort. 

Librarianship is predominantly a salaried profession. A 
few expert librarians, cataloguers, and bibliographers have 
succeeded as consultants and library agents. Librarians are 
employed as cataloguers and indexers by such organizations 
as the American Library Association, and the H. W. Wilson 
Company. There are a few in library journalism and ad- 
vertising. 

The war shortage of librarians brought the matter of 
low salaries to a crisis. A circular letter sent out in April, 
191 8, to library trustees and librarians by the Association 
of American Library Schools stated that during 1917 19 
per cent of the reference staff and 27 per cent of the circu- 
lation staff of the New York Public Library resigned to ac- 
cept better paid positions, with similar losses in Brooklyn, 
Cleveland and elsewhere. "The graduates of the Pratt In- 
stitute Library School, class of 1917, who have gone into 
library work, are getting an average salary of $845; those 



364 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

who are in government and business positions are getting 
an average of $1,177." Recent figures from the New York 
State Library School show that salaries for professional 
librarians have risen markedly during the past three years. 
For the four years, 1913-1916, the average salary for those 
taking positions at the end of their first year's training was 
$830; for the three following years, 1917-1919, it was $891, 
$962, $1,020, respectively. Two-year students at comple- 
tion of the course received during 1913-1916 an average 
initial salary of $996. The average salary for the three fol- 
lowing years has been $1,131, $1,220, $'1,341. 

Vocations for Business and Professional Women gives 
a salary range for all grades and types of librarians of $720 
— $3,000.^ In individual instances salaries are much higher 
than this. The woman director of one of the best city 
public libraries in the country is said to receive a salary of 
$8,000. With the present cost of living no graduate of a 
standard library school should receive less than $1,000 in 
the country and $1,200 in the city. If she is, in addition, 
a college graduate, the figures should be $1,200 and $1,400. 
Salaries of the fourteen librarians filling our schedules in 
1918 and 1919 ranged from $1,100 to $2,400, with a median 
of $1,500. Eight of these women are college graduates; 
four have had partial college courses; seven are graduates 
of library schools ; two have had apprentice courses in large 
university libraries. The highest salaries were those of the 
director of a middle-western public library, the librarian 
and registrar of a war-emergency government service-school, 
an educational and editorial expert in one of the most pro- 
gressive public libraries of the east. Salaries of $2,000 and 

*The Reclassification Report gives specifications for different 
classes of librarian in the Library, of Congress, the District of Co- 
lumbia Public Library and high school libraries, and Departmental 
Libraries. Salaries proposed range from $1,200 to $4,000, not in- 
cluding the Librarian or Assistant Librarian of Congress or the 
Public Librarian. Salaries of junior librar}* assistants are from 
$1,320 to $1,550; of assistants, from $1,560 to $1,920; of senior as- 
sistants and cataloguers and classifiers, from $1,980 to $2,340; of 
high school librarians, $1,200 to $1,500; of children's librarian, pub- 
lic library, from $1,620 to $1,800; of administrative librarian, depart- 
mental library, from $2,520 to $2,880; of chiefs of divisions, Library 
of Congress, $3,000 to $4,000. 



LIBRARY AND MUSEUM SERVICES 365 

over were received by an assistant in a government depart- 
ment library and the librarian of the chemical library of a 
great chemical and explosives industry. Salaries of $1,500 
and over were received by the assistant librarian of a great 
eastern art museum, and by the librarians of a medical and 
social organization of national scope and a national bureau 
concerned with social insurance. Salaries between $1,100 
and $1,500 were received by a supervisor of cataloguers 
in a metropolitan public library of the East, by the librarian 
and editorial supervisor of a middle-western school of 
social work, by the librarian of an eastern organization 
for the economic and vocational advancement of women, 
by a custodian of rare books in a middle-western state uni- 
versity, by the head of the art department of a famous 
middle-western public library, by the medical and general 
librarian of an endowed mental hospital. Some of these 
salaries have no doubt been advanced since they were re- 
ported. The list of positions shows the variety of work 
in the profession. 

Some of the comments and suggestions of these women 
may be quoted: ''Maintain as wide an acquaintance as 
possible with members of the same profession. Take as 
active a part as possible in the work of professional organi- 
zations, such as the American Library Association, the Spe- 
cial Libraries Association." 

"In advising women entering library work, I'd begin 
when they were in college, and advise them to take all the 
languages, history, and literature they could, though noth- 
ing comes amiss. Then they ought tO' have a year's ex- 
perience in a library and finally a course in a good library 
school." 

''Obtain a good general education, some business expe- 
rience, library school training, and experience with peo- 
ple." 

"Have a college degree, thorough training in languages 
and history of art. Love books, and be ready and willing 
to do detail and routine work." 

"Emphasize always the community value of the library. 
Be sure to realize the ideals and vision of the work before 
coming into it; otherwise one might be submerged by its 



366 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

drudgery and routine. In this case it would be impossible 
to succeed." 

"I would advise women librarians not to enter govern- 
ment service if they must go on the 'statutory roll' until 
some standardization of salaries and promotion systems is 
adopted." 

The large majority of librarians are women, but men 
held most important administrative posts. 

Museum work is a more recently developed and a more 
restricted profession for women than librarianship. Pro- 
fessional training, positions, and salaries are all far less 
standardized. It is, however, expanding and gaining defi- 
nition under the influence of the newer conception of the 
museum as a social and educational agency comparable 
with the library. The old custodial idea of the museum as 
an august and seldom visited repository is rapidly vanishing, 
although it is still held by some conservative boards of 
museum trustees. Work in the modern type of museum 
appeals strongly to women who combine equipment in art, 
science, ethnology, industry, and the like, with interest in 
the social and psychological uses of collections illustrating 
these subject matters. 

Museums are broadly of two types, museums of art and 
museums of science and natural history. In smaller places 
the same building may house both types. Ethnological col- 
lections are increasing in importance, and have both scien- 
tific and artistic aspects. There are likewise commercial 
and industrial, historical, safety-appliance, social and civic 
museums. These last are often distinguished from exhi- 
bitions only by their more permanent character. They fre- 
quently originate through the preservation of collections as- 
sembled for exhibition purposes. Thus the Philadelphia 
Commercial Museum grew out of the Centennial Exposition 
of 1876; the Field Columbian Museum of Natural History 
in Chicago out of the World's Fair of 1893. The greatest 
art museum of the country is the New York Metropolitan 
Museum of Art ; the greatest scientific museum is the New 
York American Museum of Natural History. But Boston, 
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, Chicago, Baltimore, 
and Buffalo have famous art museums ; and good museums 



LIBRARY AND MUSEUM SERVICES 367 

of lesser reputation exist in many other cities, and are in- 
creasing in number. The great government museums in 
Washington contain many unrivaled scientific and ethnolog- 
ical collections; and there are some important state histori- 
cal and scientific museums. 

Museum workers include in the administrative group 
directors, curators, heads of departments, and their as- 
sistants ; in the group of non-administrative experts, spe- 
cialists in charge of the collection, preparation, exhibition, 
study, and description of museum objects of various sorts; 
in the instructional group, museum instructors, "docents," 
story tellers, preparers of bulletins, leaflets, study and read- 
ing lists, newspaper notices, organizers of special exhibits 
within the museum and of traveling exhibits to be sent to 
schools or to other communities. Women are doing practi- 
cally all these types of museum work, although most of 
those in administrative positions are assistants.^ The di- 
rector, however, of the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo is 
a woman. The work itself is a valuable and unique form 
of training. Through it a few women have become recog- 
nized experts in textiles, design, the appraisal, collection and 
identification of art objects, and in certain scientific and 
ethnological fields. They write for technical, art, archeolog- 
ical, and scientific journals; they prepare catalogues of spe- 
cial collections ; they are even foreign buyers, a field tragic- 
ally expanded through the dire blows to populations and 
property inflicted by the war. Only a few intrepid women 
have been field collectors of scientific materials. Art mu- 
seum experience furnishes an admirable background for 
some forms of interior decorating, for the designing of set- 
tings and costumes for plays, pageants, and motion pictures, 
for directing exhibits, even for certain types of display 
advertising. 

There are no recognized schools of museum training other 
than museums themselves here and abroad, the various for- 
eign schools and institutes of art ^nd .archeology, and the 
graduate departments of universities, especially those of 
art, archeology, anthropology and ethnology, and the various 
natural sciences. The intimate relations between great 

*See Margaret T. Jackson. The Museum (1917). 



368 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

European museums, higher schools of industrial art, and 
the artistic industries are only beginning in this country, 
although there are likely to be marked developments within 
the next few years. The Metropolitan Museum has re- 
cently appointed an associate in industrial arts "whose spe- 
cific business it is to help the manufacturer, dealer, de- 
signer, artisan, or manual craftsman in taking advantage of 
the privileges offered by the Museum." The National So- 
ciety for Vocational Education is undertaking a survey 
of all opportunities in the United States for training in 
the industrial arts.^ Some cooperative arrangements for 
training have existed between Teachers College of Colum- 
bia University and the Metropolitan Museum ; and several 
museums have undertaken somewhat experimentally the 
training of qualified young women as docents or instructors. 
But for the most part they look to the departments of uni- 
versities for the comparatively few highly trained begin- 
ners that they require. 

From this it follows that such positions are most fre- 
quently secured through the professors with whom a woman 
has studied. Direct application must be backed by their 
recommendations. The American Association of Museums, 
however, acts as a clearing-house of information with ref- 
erence to both positions and workers ; and is performing a 
valuable service in developing professional group spirit and 
professional standards of preparation and compensation. 
But the very nature of museum work tends to make its con- 
ditions and its practitioners individual and highly specialized. 

Salaries, in consequence, are unstandardized and fre- 
quently even lower than those of librarians and teachers, 
although professional requirements are higher. In many 
cases the chance to work in a special museum is so highly 
valued that an unduly low salary is accepted. Salaries of 
seventeen museum workers filling our schedules ranged in 
1 91 8 from $600 to $2,400, with a median salary of $1,060. 
These workers represented museums of almost every size 
and type. As a group they were older than the library 

* See Florence Levy. Art Education: An Investigation of the 
Training Available in New York City for Artists and Artisans 
(Pamphlet, 1917). 



LIBRARY AND MUSEUM SERVICES 369 

group, including four women over fifty, four between forty 
and fifty, and only three graduating since 1910. This re- 
flects to some extent the survival of the custodial type of 
museum worker, although four of the older women were 
college graduates. In all, eleven of the seventeen were col- 
lege women. Three had had considerable graduate work, 
and one was a doctor of philosophy in geology and paleon- 
tology. One was a graduate of Simmons College in library 
science ; another had had a year's apprenticeship in a large 
city library. An instructor in an art museum had studied 
painting in a famous Paris academy and bookbinding at 
the Doves bindery in London ; another instructor had made 
eleven trips to foreign countries, including two to Asia and 
one around the world. The assistant director of a large 
western art museum after leaving college studied at the 
American School for Classical Studies in Rome and in the 
museums of Germany, England, France, and Italy under 
masters of the profession. She served as a volunteer as- 
sistant in Berlin, and has command of French, German, 
Italian, Latin, and Greek. There was only one salary of 
$2,400, received by the director of an eastern children's mu- 
seum. The assistant director of a western art museum and 
a lecturer and docent in the fine-arts department and library 
school of a large endowed institute received $1,800; the 
assistant curator of a children's museum, $1,380; the di- 
rector of a small New England museum of natural history, 
an instructor in a great middle-western art museum, and an 
assistant in a great eastern scientific museum, $1,200. An- 
other assistant in this museum received $1,060. The director 
of an art gallery in a small eastern city, the head of the 
educational department of a well-known New England art 
museum, and the assistant to the curator in the public park 
museum of an eastern city received $1,000; the curator of a 
small state historical museum, the curator of books and 
public instruction in the natural history museum of a south- 
ern city, and the assistant in a children's museum $900. Be- 
low this fall an assistant in a Pacific coast ethnological 
museum and the registrar in the public museum of an 
eastern industrial city. 

The varieties of work performed in these positions can 



370 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

be most aptly described through quotations from our sched- 
ules. The assistant director of an art museum says : "I 
assist the director in everything and take charge during his 
absence; edit bulletin, act as registrar and dean of the art 
school; accession all works of art; supervise cataloguing; 
arrange for transit of exhibitions; hang exhibitions; pre- 
pare material for catalogue, etc." 

An instructor writes: "As head of the educational de^ 
partment, I am required to supervise work with children, 
which includes drawing and modeling and a weekly story 
hour, with a yearly attendance of 7,000 children. Two paid 
assistants (one with college training) and several volunteer 
assistants help with this work. Secondly, I give talks on 
art, with or without stereopticon, to school classes, clubs, 
parent-teacher associations, church societies, etc. These 
are given without fee. Thirdly, I have supervision of the 
loan department, which includes photographs and lantern 
slides. Aid in selection and preparation of explanatory 
notes are part of my work. Fourthly, frequent articles on 
new acquisitions or on museum work for newspapers or the 
Museum Bulletin are asked for by the director. . . . This 
museum was a pioneer in work done directly with child vis- 
itors." In 1918 this worker received only $1,000 for these 
diverse services. She is not a college graduate. 

The curator of a small museum of natural history writes : 
"I receive and install material, make special exhibits, con- 
duct lecture courses, prepare school-loan collections, assem- 
ble illustrative material for classes from the schools, gen- 
erally foster the affairs, of the museum." 

The assistant curator of a children's museum writes : "I 
give public lectures daily ; teach wireless telegraphy : assist 
boys with electrical experiments ; do all of the photographic 
work of the museum." 

A scientific assistant in a department of a great natural 
history museum writes : "I accession all acquisitions in the 
department ; catalogue ; take care of collections ; do research 
pertaining to the collections ; make identifications ; and com- 
pile bibliographies." 

An assistant in geology and paleontology in the same mu- 
seum writes : *'I carve plaster models of shells ; identify and 



LIBRARY AND MUSEUM SERVICES 371 

classify fossils ; write exhibition labels ; plan exhibits, etc." 

Some of the comments on museum policy are worth quot- 
ing. "The director has made one of the most active small 
museums in the country out of a dead college collection of 
stuffed animals, and is producing a maximum of efficiency 
on a minimum of money." 

"The director is in line with all new and approved meth- 
ods, experiments, and discussions, and expects his staff to 
be." 

"Our policies are conservative, because a board of wealthy 
business men are not sensitive to the importance of pro- 
gressive policies in the education of young children." 

"It is very difficult for a museum to be really progressive 
because of the lack of competent and well-trained workers." 

Advice to prospective workers is as follows : An art mu- 
seum instructor writes : "It is useless work without travel 
in Europe and many years of research." 

Another writes : "Get training ahead of time. Be will- 
ing to work hard for experience and willing to take re- 
sponsibility regularly and in an emergency." 

A scientific assistant writes : "Do not enter into it with- 
out an understanding of what your work will be. Come as 
a specialist if possible. Take a purely business attitude 
toward the salary proposition, and take care not to get into 
a rut. It can easily be done in scientific pursuits — speaking 
for women. Men come as scientific specialists and there- 
fore demand more. They will not do routine work and 
women scientists have to. As routine workers your work 
does not speak loudly, and therefore is not paid for as the 
purely scientific work." 

One of the foremost women art museum experts in the 
country writes : "Learn all you can ; travel much ; use your 
eyes and ears carefully ; be adaptable ; go into the work for 
the love of it, not for the money or advantages in it. Don't 
hesitate to take volunteer positions first, and be prepared to 
spend years in 'breaking into' any museum position." 

An art museum curator writes : "Visit the best museums ; 
study the arrangement of exhibits from all standpoints, es- 
pecially the artistic. Show-windows ^^n the best stores are 
good guides sometimes." 



372 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Another writes : "Make your galleries valuable to the 
community ; make all visitors feel that you are personally 
interested in their getting the most out of their visits. Se- 
cure frequent and excellent exhibitions." 



CHAPTER XIX 

TEACHING AND OTHER EDUCATIONAL SERVICES 

Although teaching was the pioneer profession for 
women, and continues to make large demands upon their 
services, it has been purposely placed at the end of our 
survey of the professions, with no intention of minimizing 
its fundamental importance but in order to show the in- 
fluence upon it of recent professional movements and to 
help in determining its present position and prospects. 

For the past ten years teaching has been making a dimin- 
ishing appeal to professional women, partly on account of 
the opening to them of other professions, partly on account 
of conditions in teaching itself. This turning away from 
teaching was greatly accelerated by the war, and the coun- 
try is facing to-day a critical shortage of teachers of 
every grade and even more serious prospects for the fu- 
ture unless teachers of the highest type can be recruited 
in sufficient numbers. Fortunately, the very seriousness 
of the situation and the great national audit of our edu- 
cational resources and limitations made through the find- 
ings of the draft and the war-time demands for expert 
workers of all sorts have given us a new and vivid sense of 
the fact that education is a basic national obligation and 
teaching the most essential and "constant" form of public 
service. In spite of present discouragements, we are really 
on the threshold of the most constructive period in educa- 
tion that this country has ever known; and women need to 
consider more carefully than ever before their professional 
opportunities and responsibilities with respect to t^eaching 
and other educational services. The profession as a whole 
is taking stock of itself and recognizing how far in many 
respects it falls below professional standards. It is compar- 
ing itself with other professions and learning the meaning 
of their increasing self-direction and increasing educational 

373 



374 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

requirements and applications. All along the line, educa- 
tional institutions and the occupations are regarding each 
other with a new respect and beginning to recognize that 
they are distinct but supplementary aspects of a reciprocal 
process. The old contest between liberal and vocational 
education is coming to seem obsolete in the light of a better 
educational and social psychology. The changing attitude of 
the colleges is described in Chapter XXI. In all this new 
educational thinking the central emphasis is placed upon 
the teacher and upon the absolute necessity of adequate 
professional training. The untrained teacher, whether high 
school or college graduate, is no longer looked upon as in 
the full sense a professional worker. 

The present chapter can only outline in a broad way 
against the background of the other professions some of 
the opportunities, advantages, and disadvantages offered to 
women by teaching and other forms of educational service. 
It cannot be said too emphatically that women of high pro- 
fessional standing are nowhere needed more acutely than in 
every part of the teaching field. College women can no 
longer limit their interest to high schools, private secondary 
schools, normal schools, and colleges.^ They are needed in 
elementary schools, in vocational schools, in special schools 
and classes, not only as teachers but as supervisors, princi- 
pals, and superintendents. They are needed as visiting 
teachers, as vocational counselors, as teachers of foreign- 
ers, as psychological examiners of school children, as "ed- 
ucational directors" in industries and in department stores; 
in Young Women's Christian Associations, in Girl Scout 
organizations, and other clubs of girls and women, in 
women's trade unions. They are needed as executive sec- 
retaries of public education associations, parent-teacher 
associations, educational leagues, boards, and commissions 
of all kinds. They are needed in educational investigation 
and research: to make school surveys and prepare school 
exhibits; to collect and interpret educational statistics; to 
study problems of curriculum and teaching, classroom per- 
formance tests, physical and mental tests and measurements ; 

* See Frank E. Spaulding. Do College Women Believe in Edu- 
cation? Vassar and Smith Quarterlies. November, 1920. 



EDUCATIONAL SERVICES 375 

standardizations along many lines. ^ Education and right 
teaching are back of and permeate every type of organized 
group effort. 

There is something bracing to self-respect about be- 
longing to a profession supported largely through pub- 
lic taxation and serving the community on the side of its 
normal growth, not on the side of its lapses and break- 
downs. Among the rights upon which modern society de- 
pends and which every democratic society must guarantee 
to its members — the right to truth, the right to justice, the 
right to health, the right to work, the right to leisure — the 
right to truth, for the transmission and enlargement of 
which the teaching profession is primarily responsible, is 
surely the most fundamental. Upon it depend all the other 
rights and the maintenance of the social order itself. In 
a large sense, all professions are educational as having to 
do with the progressive reconstruction of society, and only 
fully professional in so far as they are educational. The 
schools of a community, no matter how wretched they may 
be, are at least potentially its most democratic and hopeful 
civic asset. The other professions are to-day rallying around 
the school; the school is offering them its hospitality and 
asking their aid. With community centers and health and 
nutrition centers in the school or closely allied with it ; with 
visiting teachers going out to the homes and others teaching 
foreigners in the factories ; with libraries and museums and 
chambers of commerce and labor unions all cooperating 
with the school, no one can say that it is not an active civic 
and social agency, and that the teacher is not a social worker 
in the most constructive and least patronizing sense. The 
college graduate who wishes to work with- girls has as fine 
an opportunity in the high school as in any philanthropic 
organization ; the college graduate who yearns to do "Amer- 
icanization work" can learn more of its problems through 
teaching in a school attended by the children of foreigners 
than she can ever learn outside of it; the college graduate 
who would become an employment manager may well serve 

* For an admirable brief statement of present-day opportunities 
in education, see Vocational Information, Leland Stanford Junior 
University Bulletin (1919). under Education, 



376 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

at least an apprenticeship in the sort of school from which 
young factory workers are recruited; the college graduate 
who would understand the rural community may get her 
best chance for real insight — for country folk are not so 
"broken" to investigation as are city folk — through teaching 
in a country school. Instead of being the oldest and dullest 
of professions, as it sometimes seems to the young, teaching 
to-day gives promise of becoming one of the newest and 
most adventurous, with battles and conquests all along the 
line, all sorts of intellectual and moral ''equivalents of war." 
But all the§e new opportunities and new outlooks in the 
old opportunities call for women with fine social intelligence, 
broad education, and command of the resources and tech- 
niques of their profession. If teaching is to rise to full pro- 
fessional stature, it must not be recruited from the ranks 
of the timid, the dull, or the lazy. Ten or fifteen years 
ago most college graduates of ability turned perforce to 
teaching; those of lesser ability followed. The movement 
for bureaus of occupations and college conferences on oc- 
cupations other than teaching, described in the next two 
chapters, began not in competition with teaching but in the 
effort to provide for those whose talents and inclinations 
lay in other directions and who often became teachers in 
default of other opportunities, to their own dissatisfaction 
and to the detriment of teaching itself. The claims of teach- 
ing as a profession for college women were assumed to be 
paramount and universally recognized. But nowadays the 
attraction of other occupations is so strong that teaching 
has become a discredited and almost forgotten occupation, 
to which young college graduates turn only as a stop-gap 
employment, or when they lack ambition or ability to go 
into anything else. College professors report that their 
ablest students laugh at the idea that they shall seriously 
prepare themselves for teaching as a career. Teaching no 
longer speaks for itself to college women. It has to be 
brought definitely to their attention like any other occupa- 
tion and to compete with them on its merits. So serious 
has the lack of young teachers of the best type become for 
the private schools that the Headmistresses' Association is 
asking women prominent in education to speak before the 



EDUCATIONAL SERVICES 377 

students of the women's colleges on teaching as a profession. 
Thus not so long ago were presented the claims of banking 
or industry, chemistry or medical social service. The high 
schools are meeting similar difficulties ; and there is need 
of a careful study of the whole matter of the future supply 
of college teachers. In this fall of teaching from its former 
high estate as the major occupation for college women 
there is one obvious advantage. It calls attention to the 
fact that the modern college of liberal arts is not a pro- 
fessional school for teachers any more than it is for other 
professions. The college has preserved with respect to 
teachers its last vocational inheritance from the medieval 
university. But its function here as elsewhere is only pre- 
professional, and the preparation it offers is not sufficient 
by itself to place teaching fully on a par with other modern 
professions. 

The present disinclination to teaching, however, goes 
deeper than the competition of other professions, the lack 
of proper advertising, and even the lack of adequate pro- 
fessional training. The drop in the number and the caliber 
of those looking forward to teaching, the exodus from the 
ranks of those already in the profession, are signs that 
something is wrong with the profession itself. Much the 
same sort of thing has been happening in the fields of 
domestic service and farm labor. They show that the time 
is ripe for readjustment and reorganization throughout the 
entire range of teaching; and this is coming about. Its most 
obvious disadvantages have always been the low salaries 
paid and the slow and uncertain rate of advancement. In 
the old days these were supposed to be offset by security of 
tenure, social standing, long vacations, and congeniality of 
occupation. With the present high cost of living the finan- 
cial situation of teachers has become so desperate that it 
accounts wholly to many people for the present menacing 
shortage of workers in the profession. But other salaried 
professions are facing similar difficulties ; and in all of 
them, as in teaching, vigorous steps are being taken to put 
the whole matter of remuneration and promotion on a sound- 
er and juster basis than ever before. (See Chapter III.) 
What amounts to a national campaign for increasing teach- 



378 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

ers' salaries has been in progress, including the various great 
college ''drives." ^ Its educational as well as its financial 
results are bound to be large. But low salaries are not the 
only disadvantage in the teaching profession. There is a 
growing realization on the part of successful teachers and 
other educational leaders throughout the country that a 
fundamental weakness of teaching as a profession lies in 
the fact that teachers have no share in determining the con- 
ditions under which their work is carried on. In the public 
school system they do not participate, as a rule, even in an 
advisory capacity, in the framing of educational and admin- 
istrative policies, the organization of the curriculum, the se- 
lection of superintendents, principals, and teachers, the 
choice of text-books, the establishment of salary-schedules 
and systems of promotion. Their responsibility is supposed 
to be limited to the class-room ; at most, to the faculty meet- 
ing and the individual school. In higher education, the 
situation is not very much better. Educational direction is 
exclusively in the hands of boards of education, boards of 
trustees, superintendents, principals, and presidents. Teach- 
ers are commonly not informed of what is going on until 
decisions have been reached, and sometimes not then. In 
no other profession have professional workers so little con- 
trol over matters that affect their own welfare and their re- 
lations to the public, although it is a danger inherent in all 
professions on a salaried basis. It is this lack of partici- 
pation in the enterprise of education rather than low salaries 
that accounts to thinking people for the precarious status of 
teaching as a profession and the turning away from it of the 
more vigorous and active-minded of the present generation. 
In this respect teaching is increasingly out of touch with the 
whole tendency and spirit of the modern occupational world. 
The old conception of academic freedom is negative and 
passive, a mere freedom from interference. It needs to 
become a positive conception of freedom through responsi- 
bility. Teachers are too often hired subordinates rather 

* A National Citizens* Conference on Education attended by the 
jBTOvernors and educational authorities of many states was held in 
Washington, under the auspices of the U. S. Bureau of Edtic«itJQD 
in May, 1920. 



EDUCATIONAL SERVICES 379 

than professional workers. But here, too, there are signs of 
a new era. In both Great Britain and the United States they 
are asking for representation on boards of educational con- 
trol and for the formation of teachers' advisory councils. 
The Committee on the Emergency in Education of the Na- 
tional Education Association has recommended that ever)) 
school board should recognize the right of teachers to ap- 
pear before it, and that this right should be guaranteed by 
legislation. "Next to the provision of better salaries for 
teachers, nothing will do more to raise the status of the 
profession and make its service attractive to the kind of 
men and women that the schools need, than the adoption 
of a policy that will lift the classroom teacher above the 
level of a mere routine worker carrying out in a mechanical 
fashion plans and policies that are handed down from 
above." Successful teachers' councils exist in Boston, To- 
ledo, Washington, Cincinnati, Portland, Oregon, and other 
cities, and are being widely established. There seems no 
reason why teachers should not be represented on boards of 
education as they are beginning to be represented on col- 
lege boards of trustees. With both types of board, in any 
event, they should have organized channels of communica- 
tion and conference. The rapid increase of teachers' unions 
among all ranks from the elementary school to the univer- 
sity, whatever may be thought of its wisdom, at least re- 
veals a new initiative and a new group consciousness that 
are bound to give teachers better professional standing. 

These two major disadvantages of teaching, poor salaries 
and lack of professional control and responsibility, underlie 
its other disadvantages, low standards of professional train- 
ing and meager opportunities for professional improvement 
and personal and social Hfe. A valuable study made under 
the auspices of the National Education Association ^ asserts 
that only about twenty-five per cent of the school teachers 
of the United States have had training extending even two 
years beyond the high school, that about four million chil- 
dren (or a fifth of those enrolled in elementary schools) are 

* E. S. Evenden. Teachers' Salaries and Salary Schedules (1919), 
p. 2. See also Know and Help Your Schools. Inquiry Number One. 
American City Bureau (1920). 



38o WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

taught by teachers less than twenty-one years of age "with 
little or no high school training, with no professional prep- 
aration for their work, and who are, in a great majority of 
cases, products of the same schools in which they teach." 
Fully forty per cent of teachers are under twenty-five years 
of age, and the majority of teachers remain in the pro- 
fession less than five years. The "teaching turnover" in 
the smaller schools approaches that in the low-paid indus- 
tries. The United States Commissioner of Education in his 
report for 1918 does not venture to set as a practical mini- 
mum of preparation for teachers anything more than four 
years of high school and at least one year of professional 
training. The average of all teachers' salaries in 1918 was 
only $630.34. Dr. Evenden finds that salaries in 1918-1919 
in 392 cities reporting showed a maximum of $2,200 and 
a median of $856 for teachers below the seventh grade ; a 
maximum of $2,300 and a median of $951 for teachers of 
the last two grades ; a maximum of $3,000 and a median of 
$1,224 for high school teachers. The Survey asked not 
long since: "Is Teaching a Sweated Trade?" A pungent 
article in the Atlantic'^ suggests that it is an occupation 
making use of child labor. 

From such facts it is obvious that the majority of teach- 
ers, like the majority of routine clerical workers, look upon 
their work as a stop-gap occupation, and are in no sense 
truly professional. The burdens of professional responsi- 
bility and leadership in education consequently fall to-day 
upon the twenty-five per cent of teachers with normal or 
college training and upon the institutions sending them forth. 
The day has gone by for the college graduate to think that 
she belongs as a teacher only in the secondary school or the 
college, and has no need of further preparation, for the 
normal graduate to think that she has no need of university 
courses. Crowded university summer schools testify that 
this latter idea is passing. A recent Carnegie Foundation 
report ^ urges that the name "normal school" be dropped, 

*A. R. Brubacker. Plain Talk to Teachers. Atlantic Monthly. 
December, 1Q19. 

^ The Professional Preparation of Teachers for American Public 
Schools. Bulletin Number Fourteen (1920). 



EDUCATIONAL SERVICES 381 

and that these institutions be made an integral part of the 
system of professional schools attached to the state uni- 
versity. It also makes a strong plea for the professionally! 
trained teacher to continue her work after marriage, point- 
ing out the value of such identification with the community. 
The fact that ninety per cent of the school population is 
in the elementary school and will go no further, and that 
the elementary school is thus the great public agency in 
matters of child health, child mental hygiene, and a true 
"Americanization" for both native and foreign born, makes 
it imperative to put the most thoroughly trained teachers 
at its service and incumbent upon the colleges and uni- 
versities to equip them adequately. 

To assist in raising the standards of teaching to a genu- 
inely professional level, Dr. Evenden suggests that initial 
salaries be based upon the amount of education, and that 
no differences be made between elementary and high school 
teacliers. His salary schedule, proposed in 1919, is as fol- 
lows, with a reduction of $200 for cities under 25,000 in- 
habitants to correspond to their lower cost of living: 

AMOUNT MINIMAL ANNUAL MAXIMAL 

OF EDUCATION SALARY INCREASES SALARY 

Normal Diploma $1,200 6 x $100 $1,800 

A. B. Degree $1,400 10 x $100 $2,400 

A. M. Degree $1,600 10 x $100 $2,600 

Ph. D. Degree $2,000 10 x $100 $3,ooo 

The United States Commissioner of Education has rec- 
ommended a minimum teachers' salary of $1,800, and the 
American Federation of Teachers a minimum of $2,000. 
All recent authorities agree that the financial and social 
distinctions between elementary and high school teachers 
must be done away with as rapidly as possible. Dr. Even- 
den's discussion of principles governing salary schedules 
and promotions is well worth careful attention. Under his 
plan, teachers of the various degrees of educational prep- 
aration would be chosen as of old on the basis of individual 
fitness ; those with successful experience would begin at a 
salary above the minimum to which .their education entitled 
them. He has a special scale for heads of departments, 



382 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

special supervisors, and principals, and suggests ways in 
which exceptional ability and service may fairly be re- 
warded above the maximum. As a practical measure of 
the cost of living in different communities, he asked super- 
intendents the cost of suitable board and room for a teacher. 
He presents an estimate made by an expert in living condi- 
tions of the percentage of salary at different levels that 
should go to these two items. 

SALARY PER CENT FOR ROOM AND BOARD 

$1,800 42 per cent 

$1,200 50 per cent 

$900 57 per cent 

Such a percentage might well be worked out for clothing, 
which is always a heavy item in a teacher's budget and the 
increased cost of which since 1914 has considerably exceeded 
that of food. The minimum budget prepared by the Bureau 
of Labor Statistics for a woman government clerk ^ pro- 
vides a convenient parallel, although it is on a meager scale. 

The importance of raising teaching to full professional 
status has never been so widely recognized, and popular in- 
terest in education has never been so widespread nor so 
little satisfied with things as they are. The high percentage 
of illiteracy discovered in the American forces during the 
war and the war-time agitation regarding non-English- 
speaking foreigners have led to a somewhat excessive con- 
centration upon the mere ability to speak, read, and write 
English. But these more superficial considerations have in 
their turn led to a fresh realization of the functions and pos- 
sibilities of education in a democracy made up of all the 
peoples of the earth. The "Smith-Towner" bill, now before 
Congress, creates a federal Department of Education with 
a secretary at its head sitting in the President's cabinet, in 
place of the present subordinate Bureau of Education in 
the Department of the Interior ; authorizes the consolidation 
under it of the thirty-odd independent agencies under the 
federal government concerned in one way or another with 
education; and allots one hundred million dollars a year 
to all states meeting certain educational standards fpr the 

^Monthly Labor Review. January, 1920. 



EDUCATIONAL SERVICES 383 

abatement of illiteracy, native and foreign, the improvement 
of teachers' salaries and professional preparation, especially 
for rural schools, the encouragement of health education 
and health agencies. Provision is made for research in 
these fields. While many educators and students of affairs 
do not approve of the extremely specific requirements of 
this particular bill, nor of the principle of direct federal aid 
to the states for education, there seems to be general agree- 
ment that it would be advisable to recognize the national 
importance of education by establishing a department of 
cabinet rank with appropriations of sufficient liberality to 
enable it to make continuous and thorough investigations 
and reports on the progress and character of education in 
the several states. The stimulating effect of such compara- 
tive studies, even when not made under public auspices, is 
illustrated by the famous Carnegie Foundation Report on 
Medical Education of ten years ago, and by Dr. Leonard 
P. Ayres's recent Index Number for State School Systems,^ 
showing their relative standing in certain respects for the 
last fi-fty years. Educational leaders are urging the creation 
of a presidential commission on education, similar to the 
President's Industrial Commission, to make a compre- 
hensive study and report before the passage of legislation 
by Congress. Education is traditionally and constitution- 
ally a matter for state control. But some method must 
be devised for correcting inequalities of educational op- 
portunity, which are almost as great within states as be- 
tween states, and for stimulating public interest and public 
support. With eighteen thousand school buildings closed 
and almost a million children deprived of existing educa- 
tional facilities through lack of teachers ; with an estimated 
shortage of from thirty-five thousand to ninety thousand 
teachers for 1920- 192 1, including fifteen thousand high 
school teachers; with a lowering of already deplorably low 
standards of preparation — it is no wonder that there is talk 
of a national crisis in education.^ 

^ Russell Sage Foundation ( 1920) , 

' See J. A. H. Keith and William C. Bagley. The Nation and 
the Schools (1920), especially Chapters XVIII-XIX. W. D. Lane. 
The National Crisis in Education. Survey, May 29, 1920. 



384 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

Meanwhile, there are many signs of popular interest and 
action. Massachusetts has passed a law providing more 
equal educational facilities throughout the state. The Amer- 
ican Federation of Labor has an enlightened and demo- 
cratic educational program, and advocates greater responsi- 
bility and independence for the teacher. A national com- 
mittee for chamber of commerce cooperation with the 
schools is made up of an equal number of chamber of com- 
merce secretaries and superintendents of schools, and has 
enlisted the cooperation of over four hundred chambers in 
an investigation of teachers' salaries and other educational 
problems.^ The American Army Educational Commission, 
which carried on the educational work for our overseas 
forces, recommends a permanent bureau of education as 
part of the machinery of the League of Nations, and says 
that "education has become the chief concern of statesmen." 
An Institute of International Education has been estab- 
lished in New York to facilitate the exchange of professors 
and students between Ameri(;an and European educational 
institutions, and to act as a clearing-house of educational 
information. It is administering a large number of ex- 
change fellowships and scholarships, among them the Rose 
Sidgwick Memorial Fellowship for British university 
women. Others are open to women. 

In view of the urgent and far-reaching demand for teach- 
ers adequately prepared to deal with the manifold and en- 
larging problems of modern education, the universities and 
colleges are confronted by new educational responsibilities. 
Greater numbers of teachers will be educated by them, and 
there will be closer relations of some kind between them and 
the normal and training schools. Professional training 
proper for teaching as for other professions is a function 
of the university and not of the college of liberal arts. 
Teachers College of Columbia University is on a graduate 
basis; Harvard University has just established a Graduate 
School of Education and Yale is doing likewise; the Uni- 
versity of Chicago and other universities have schools giv- 
ing the master's and doctor's degrees in this field. Many 
of the colleges have undergraduate departments and courses 
^Know and Help Your Schools (Pamphlet, 1920). 



EDUCATICNAL SERVICES 385 

in education ; but their relation to professional training for 
teaching has never been made wholly clear. Some of them 
are doing excellent work ; others are concessions to state 
requirements for teachers, and win little respect from either 
faculty or students. They are a hybrid sort of thing, neither 
truly professional nor truly liberal. But there is a legiti- 
mate place and a genuine need for pre-professional courses 
in education in the undergraduate curriculum, dealing with 
the school as one of the most important of modern social 
institutions, with the history of educational practices and 
ideals as related to social development, with the psychologi- 
cal trends and responses of the child that make him sus- 
ceptible of both right and wrong education, and with psy- 
chological measurements. Courses of this sort are certainly 
as liberalizing as courses in charities and corrections, indus- 
trial and political history, labor problems, and abnormal 
psychology. Students do not become aware of educational 
problems and the modern significance of education merely 
through going to college. Without such courses, they lack 
an element of good citizenship; and if they begin to teach 
without professional training, they are likely to inflict upon 
their pupils what has been termed "watered college or cold 
school." With these courses, they are far more likely to 
perceive the need of proper professional study. There is 
a good deal to be said for giving undergraduate courses 
in education not in a special department but in the several 
departments of history, sociology, and psychology in which 
they naturally fall, with some provision for coordinated 
administration. 

In addition to better salaries and better professional train- 
ing, though dependent upon them, are certain other changes 
that must be made in the opportunities of a teacher in order 
to enable teaching not merely to hold its own but to take 
the leading position among the professions that its impor- 
tance warrants. Modern teachers must be of vigorous and 
growing personality with varied resources and contacts with 
Hfe; and the conditions of their work must not be such as 
to shut them out from participation in the affairs of their 
day and their community. Teaching can no longer be a 
secluded and monotonous occupation. Moreover, it must be 



3S6 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

clearly recognized that good modern teaching makes heavy- 
demands upon the mental and physical energy of teachers, 
and requires various provisions for their reinvigoration. 
^'Sabbatical years" are needed not only by college teachers 
but by teachers in every grade of the service; and these 
leaves should not all be given according to one plan but 
according to various types of teacher and kinds of work. 
Teachers whose interest is primarily in research are prob- 
ably well served by the existing method; teachers who ex- 
pend themselves in notably good teaching are likely to re- 
quire shorter and more frequent leaves ; teachers whose 
abilities are markedly administrative need opportunities to 
see what others are doing. Sometimes part-time work for 
a year or a half-year will enable a teacher to finish a piece 
of writing or to serve on an outside committee. Exchanges 
of teachers between institutions, particularly when they are 
situated in different parts of the country, are growing in 
favor and bring new ideas and refreshment of spirit. 
There is much to be said for exchanges between college 
and secondary teachers. War-service has shown the ad- 
vantages of the teacher's taking up temporarily some other 
type of work, allied to his own field. Institutions are likely 
to continue and extend the practice of "lending" members 
of their faculties not only to the government but to social 
and industrial organizations. The introduction of the four- 
quarter system in both colleges and schools would further 
flexibility in these arrangements, and would make education 
more responsive to the needs of the times. Dr. Edwin 
F. Gay in an article entitled Does a University Career 
Offer No Future? points out the new position and the 
new function of higher institutions in national life. "They 
are now expected not only to transmit the store of usable 
knowledge but to add to it by research on all sides; they 
are looked to increasingly for the training of teachers and 
administrators for the lower schools, thus bringing the 
university in closer touch with the great masses of the 
population; they are under constant pressure to meet the 
new needs of a new industrial society by new, specialized 
instruction." 

Teachers of special subjects and of special groups are 



EDUCATIONAL SERVICES 387 

increasing in number and importance, and are finding im- 
proved and widespread facilities for preparation. In con- 
nection with school systems are teachers of art, music, 
physical education, ''manual training," "home economics," 
commercial subjects, kindergartens, as well as supervisors 
in these fields. There are teachers of retarded, defective, 
and exceptionally bright children ; teachers in technical and 
commercial high schools ; teachers in trade, agricultural, and 
other vocational schools ; teachers of applied arts and handi- 
crafts; teachers of play, recreation, folk-dancing and 
pageantry; teachers of gardening and farming; teachers in 
factory ''vestibule schools," in department stores, and in 
offices; teachers in institutions for the atypical; teachers 
of "occupational therapy" ; teachers in reformatories and 
prisons ; teachers in professional schcK)ls ; teachers in various 
"extension systems" and classes for adults ; teachers in 
"trade union colleges." Actual "shop" or "field" practice is 
coming to be considered a necessary part of their equipment, 
especially in order that they may supervise their students 
in such work. The Federal Board for Vocational Educa- 
tion, working through the states, is standardizing and co- 
ordinating the preparation of teachers in agriculture, trades, 
home economics, commerce, and retail salesmanship. The 
social bearings of modern education make it necessary for 
special teachers to have an adequate foundation of liberal 
education, as well as thorough training in their techniques 
and in the larger professional aspects of teaching. 

Teachers of "special classes" in the public schools, of 
trades and industries, of non-English-speaking children and 
adults both native and foreign-born, combine to a peculiar 
extent the functions of teacher and "social worker." But 
vocational advisers or counselors and visiting teachers or 
"home-and-school visitors" are the real "case workers" in 
the educational field. They need specific training and ex- 
perience in teaching and in certain aspects of social and 
industrial work, as well as familiarity with mental hygiene 
and at least the results of psychological tests. Although 
the work of one is primarily preventive and constructive 
and of the other remedial, their lines often cross ; and both 
have recourse to psychological and vocational laboratories 



388 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

or clinics, such as the Cincinnati Vocation Bureau and the 
recently established psychological clinic in Louisville. Some 
university laboratories provide these facilities for the schools 
of the community. 

In vocational guidance, methods are still experimental 
and admittedly imperfect ; but much active thinking has 
been generated by the war. It is an educational service 
of peculiar delicacy and difficulty. It may perhaps be 
most fruitfully regarded as one aspect of a continuous edu- 
cational guidance, which must be given by school and so- 
ciety in cooperation, and which must never harden into 
set practices. There is a tendency in the schools as well as 
in the colleges (discussed in Chapter XXI) to lay the chief 
educational emphasis upon vocational information through 
opening to the student the main fields of occupation,^ show- 
ing the vocational bearings of the curriculum, and mak- 
ing preliminary tests of ability and aptitude in order to 
give him a basis for handling himself wisely and objec- 
tively. Personnel specifications, dealt with in Chapter III, 
are an important aid. Actual placement is being made more 
and more through junior sections of public employment 
offices, special non-commercial bureaus, and personnel de- 
partments of industries, with which the school must be in 
close contact. But placement itself is not an educational 
function. The National Vocational Guidance Association 
is again active.^ Various universities have given courses in 
vocational guidance for teachers; and many cities, notably 
Boston, Cincinnati, Chicago, Grand Rapids, Rochester, have 
vocational guidance systems of different sorts as part of 
their public school activities. Others have vocational guid- 
ance bureaus under private auspices. Settlement houses, 
the Christian Associations, and other agencies dealing with 
boys and girls and young people employ vocational advisers. 
The bureaus of occupations for trained women have laid 
great emphasis upon their function of guidance. A Bureau 
of Vocational Information has been established in New 

*See F. J. Allen. A Guide to the Study of Occupations (1921). 

'See reports of committees on machinery of placement and com- 
munity organization for vocational guidance. Bulletin of National 
Committee of Bureaus of Occupations. February, 1920. 



EDUCATIONAL SERVICES 389 

York by experienced college women. A bulletin of the 
United States Bureau of Education gives over nine hundred 
high schools reporting vocational guidance.^ 

Visiting teachers are to schools what medical social work- 
ers are to hospitals. They follow any child giving evidence 
of school or home difficulties into his home and neighbor- 
hood, and study and treat the situation as the class teacher 
is not able to do, bringing to bear all necessary cooperating 
agencies. About twenty cities employ these teachers under 
the board of education, including Worcester, Hartford, 
Rochester, Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, and Minneapolis. 
In Boston, Philadelphia, and Kansas City they are main- 
tained in the public schools by private associations. New 
York has both methods. California in 191 5 passed a per- 
missive "home teacher" act authorizing school boards to 
send teachers into the homes to instruct mothers and chil- 
dren in the English language, household duties, and citi- 
zenship. This is primarily an ''Americanization" measure. 
The National Association of Visiting Teachers and Home 
and School Visitors, organized in 191 6, is now making a 
survey of the work of visiting teachers throughout the 
country. The Federal Children's Bureau indorses the work 
of the visiting teacher in connection with its campaign 
for keeping children in school; and the mental hygienist 
finds her an invaluable aid. It is work that requires spe- 
cial professional and personal equipment, but has a high 
degree of social usefulness. It is distinct from the work 
of the attendance or truant officer in that its emphasis is 
on prevention. A visiting teacher should preferably have 
had classroom experience, but the case-hardened teacher is 
not suited to this work.^ The school psychological examiner 
is discussed in Chapter XVII. 

Of other educational services, educational administra- 
tion grows most directly out of teaching, since it is com- 
monly as a teacher that the administrator tests his aptitude, 

* Vocational Guidance in Secondary Education. Bulletin 19, 1918. 
See also Vocational Guidance and the Public Schools. Bulletin 24, 
1918; John M. Brewer, The Vocational Guidance Movement (1918) ; 
an'"' '^'''e f^r "Rlo^-^^^H. Readings in Vocational Guidance (1916). 

'See David Holbrook. The Teacher Who Came Back. The 
Family. February, 192 1. 



390 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

and the actual teaching experience is of inestimable value 
in dealing with administrative problems. But the princi- 
pal, superintendent, president or dean may likewise nowa- 
days secure special professional training in problems of 
administration. It is important, wherever possible, for the 
administrator to continue to do some teaching in order to 
keep in mind essential teaching problems and to retain 
actual contacts with students. Deans of women in coeduca- 
tional universities, whose position is sometimes ill-defined,^ 
need to insist upon a full position on the faculty and pref- 
erably upon a certain amount of teaching. Nothing so 
wins the respect of students for administrative officers. 
Men still occupy the larger number of administrative posts 
in education. But there are women in all the types of posi- 
tion mentioned above. In the west, nine women are state 
superintendents of education and very commonly county 
superintendents, of whom there are now some seven hun- 
dred and twenty. A woman state superintendent is presi- 
dent of the National Education Association ; a woman was 
for a number of years superintendent of schools in Chi- 
cago; another has recently become one in Los Angeles. 
Women city superintendents and high-school principals 
are Hkely to increase. There are of course many women 
heads of private schools. 

There are also administrative positions in connection 
with educational associations, local and national, and in con- 
nection with city and -state boards of education. A dozen 
cities or so, including New York, Buffalo, Philadelphia, 
Providence, Worcester, Chicago, Baltimore, and Richmond, 
maintain voluntary public education associations to study 
the operations of the local school system and to keep citi- 
zens informed and interested in their efficient administra- 
tion. 

Educational investigation and research are of many kinds 
and carried on under various auspices, public and private. 
The United States Bureau of Education in the Department 

^ See Lois Kimball Matthews. The Dean of Women (1916). 
There is a National Conference of Deans of Women meeting with 
the Department of Superintendence of the National Education Asso- 
ciation, and a Deans' Conference in connection with the biennial 
meetings of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. 



EDUCATIONAL SERVICES 391 

of the Interior has for many years performed a valuable 
service in collecting and distributing statistical and other 
information. It is cruelly limited by meager appropriations, 
but issues a useful series of bulletins and biennial statistical 
reports. Of late years, both it and the Children's Bureau of 
the Department of Labor have carried on campaigns for 
the improvement of child health through the schools. The 
Children's Bureau has also conducted a "Back to School" 
campaign. The Department of Agriculture and more re- 
cently the Department of Commerce have also engaged in 
important educational investigations. A recent estimate, 
however, finds that the federal government spends only one 
per cent of its annual appropriations for education and re- 
search. The American Council on Education, arising as a 
war-emergency measure, represents the colleges, universi- 
ties, and professional schools at the capital, and acts as a 
medium of communication between them and the federal 
government. The National Education Association, repre- 
senting especially the public school systems of the country, 
likewise has a central office in Washington. Many state 
departments of education and a few large city school sys- 
tems, maintain bureaus of investigation and research. The 
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 
the General Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, 
and the Department of Education of the Russell Sage 
Foundation conduct intensive educational investigations^ 
and are frequently called in as experts to make special 
surveys and studies for states, communities, and organiza- 
tions. The Carnegie Foundation has made a survey of the 
educational system of the state of Vermont, and its recent 
bulletin on the professional training of teachers is based 
on a study of the Missouri system of normal and training 
schools. The General Education Board issued in 1919 an 
eight-volume report on the Gary School System. The 
Education Survey in 25 small volumes, made in 1916 
by the Cleveland Foundation, enlisted the cooperation 
of a large staff of experts. The new Commonwealth 
Foundation has made large appropriations for educational 
inquiry. The Bureau of Education has been invited to 
make a number of state surveys. Special studies are con- 



392 WOMEN PROFESSIONAL WORKERS 

stantly being made of problems of teaching and adminis- 
tration, and the scope of research in educational psychology 
is steadily widening. Demonstration and experimental 
schools are being established. A group of people in New 
York maintain a Bureau of Educational Experiments. 
These various forms of work have developed their own 
techniques, in which a worker must be trained. They call 
for people with the equipment of a doctor of philosophy in 
education. Sometimes those with a master's degree can 
gain training and experience as assistants on special studies. 
Much of this work is on a piece basis, and is consequently 
limited in duration. But there are a few salaried positions 
for experts in educational research in connection with edu- 
cational foundations, federal and state educational bureaus, 
boards, and commissions, and educational organizations. 
There are chances to become experts in some of the newer 
fields. Women as yet have had small place in educational 
research. 

In spite of the defections in late years, teaching is still 
the most important single profession for women; and it 
promises far more satisfactory professional opportunities in 
the near future than it has provided in the past. The 
1910 census shows that of over seven hundred thousand 
women listed as professional, 66.4 per cent were teachers 
in colleges and schools. Women teachers were 28.9 per 
cent of all professional workers, 80 per cent of all school 
teachers, and 18 per cent of college teachers.^ Of college 
women at work in 191 5 according to the Association of 
Collegiate Alumnae census, 70.5 per cent were teachers. The 
1920 census will show losses from these figures, but by 
1930 teaching may have become in a new sense the dominant 
profession for women. 

^ A committee of the American Association of University Pro- 
fessors is looking into the distribution of men and women on uni- 
versity and college faculties. In this connection, see Cora F. Mc- 
Intire, A Venture in Statistics. Journal of Association of Col- 
legiate Alumnae, October, 1918, and Opportunities and Salaries of 
Women in the Teaching Profession in Nebraska in the same publi- 
cation, March-April, 1920. 



CHAUTAUQUA HOME READING 
1921-1922 



The Chautauqua Home Reading Courses are con- 
ducted by the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific 
Circle, founded in 1878. As Bishop Vincent said 
in his first address to C. L. S. C. readers, "It is the 
design of our organization to promote habits of 
thoughtful reading and study among all classes of 
people, and to aid those whose domestic or business 
cares tempt them to neglect their intellectual im- 
provement." 

Each year four books are selected. For 1921-22 
the volumes are: "The Common People of Ancient 
Rome," by Frank Frost Abbott, of Princeton; 
"Greece and the Aegean Islands," by Philip S. 
Marden; "The New Map of Asia," by Herbert Ad- 
ams Gibbons; and "Psychology and the Day's 
Work," by James Edgar Swift, of Washington 
University. 

The C. L. S. C. is vastly more than a mere book- 
selling enterprise. The price of a set of its books 
includes membership in this great national organ- 
ization, and a complete service, with Study Helps 
and the Round Table, a C. L. S. C. magazine. The 
organization has headquarters at Chautauqua, and 
holds a prominent place in the Institution's annual 
Assembly program. 

Write TODAY, for detailed information. Ad- 
dress your inquiry to the Home Reading Desk, 
Press Dept., Chautaucg^ua Institution, Chautauqua, 
New York. 



THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF BUSINESS 
AND PROFESSIONAL WOMEN'S CLUBS 



OBJECTS: 

To promote the interests of business and profes- 
sional women; to secure combined action by them; 
to gather and distribute information relative to 
vocational opportunity; to stimulate local and 
state organizations and co-operation among busi- 
ness and professional women of the several states 
of the United States. 

HIEMBEBSHIF : 

State and county federations and local clubs, 75 
per cent of whose membership consists of active 
business and professional women, shall be eligible 
for membership in the National Federation. Na- 
tional and international organizations, 75 per cent 
of whose membership consists of business and pro- 
fessional women, may afELliate with the National 
Federation. Clubs composed of business and pro- 
fessional men and women, 75 per cent of whose 
membership consists of women actively engaged in 
business or a profession, shall be eligible to mem- 
bership in the National Federation, provided, how- 
ever, that representation in this Federation shall 
be based upon women members and only women 
may be elected as delegates and only by vote of 
the women members. 

National Headquarters : 276 Fifth Ave., New York 




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